


Friendly Neighbourhood Falcon-Mage

by Fregor



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-08-05 09:20:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16365134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fregor/pseuds/Fregor
Summary: “Just tell me you've got somewhere to stay kid.” Stark practically begged.At least this one Harry could answer positively.“Oh yeah, it's fine. My house came with me."...“I've changed my mind. You're not Oliver Twist. You're Dorothy.”Thanks to good old Black family paranoia, Harry finds himself stranded in a world full of superheroes.Peter's got a crush, Harry's oblivious, and Tony thinks his kids are hilarious.





	1. Chapter 1

Harry tilted his wings to swoop around an office building and took advantage of an updraft to soar higher.

He'd been scouting the city for weeks now, trying to find any signs of the unusual events it was supposedly rife with.

Starting from Midtown where a group called the Avengers had fought off an _**alien army** _ several years ago he'd attempted a structured scouting pattern that expanded out to cover the rest of Manhattan. That _was_  where it seemed the majority of newsworthy events occurred.

Unfortunately his search so far had resulted in nothing but flight practice and Harry's mind wandering to the logistics of superheroing. Did they have to juggle superheroing with keeping up their day jobs? Maybe being independently wealthy was a prerequisite. Either way, as his lack of success continued over the weeks Harry began putting less effort into searching till he was halfheartedly keeping a lookout while taking leisure flights over the city.

In really he was more interested in finding the local magic users of this world than trying to track down _superheros_ anyway _._ It was unfortunate for Harry the magic users of this world seemed just as dedicated to hiding and secrecy as the ones back home. Or rather they were _almost_ as dedicated. It seemed they weren't too concerned about Harry practicing magic in muggle areas all over the place as they'd yet to send out any kind of law enforcement to reprimand him. Not that Harry had deliberately tried to provoke them into doing so... That would be irresponsible _*cough*._

Regardless he'd had months of little to no luck finding any magic users on this world to the point that he'd believe there weren't any if not for the _Great Big Magical Shield_ enveloping the entire planet. It was more powerful than any other work of magic he'd ever heard of let alone observed. In fact Harry's arrival to this world had only been possible due to the -apparently temporary- destruction of the planetry shield weakening the natural dimensional barriers. Just to remove all doubt that the were active magic users on this world within the same day the planetry shield had reappeared miraculously intact as if it had never been gone in the first place. Even when your worldview included magic and dark lords that was pushing credulity.

As a result of his lack of success he'd taken a break from looking for magic users directly and had instead taken up this search for superheroes. Superheroes who with their strange abilities and experiences may be able to point him in the right direction for finding magic users who can help him get home.

Today this search for superheroes had taken Harry on a meandering flight through Queens but despite enjoying the flight he had nothing to show for hours of searching. He was considering calling it a day and going home when a red and blue blur buzzed past him only feet to his right.

Needless to say Harry was not at all shocked by this and it was the resulting turbulence generated that was completely and solely to blame for him swerving head first into an office building window. Fortunately Harry was flying leisurely enough that he didn't suffer any real damage from the collision. _Un_ fortunately it did leave him momentarily stunned so that instead of managing to hastily correct his flight he dropped like a stone plummeting towards the cement.

Harry had only just noticed his upcoming _meat_ ing with the pavement when out of nowhere some kind of sticky cord smacked into his chest before pulling taut like a bungee cord and springing him back towards the miscreant that caused him to crash in the first place.

“Whoops, sorry. My bad.” The red and blue... man, it was definitely a _man_ in that skin tight suit, said while he swung around buildings using more sticky cords like some kind of urban Tarzan. Actually the cord attached to Harry's chest had him facing forwards so he was afforded a _fine_ view of Urban Tarzan as he displayed a build and flexibility worthy of a jungle king. If being tugged behind someone like a poorly designed kite wasn't so undignified he might have even enjoyed the experience.

Thus it was with a  _conflicted_ relief that Harry awkwardly glided down onto the low building Urban Tarzan had landed on transforming back from his animagus form as he did so. This barely gave him time to shove out his arms and avoid faceplanting into the roof gravel. He stood up dusting the stone dust from his hands before attempting to remove the sticky cord from now feather-free chest but found it stuck fast.

“Oh wow. Uh, hey. So you're a, uh.. human falcon, thing, er person... right? Sorry about the webs. Er... They'll dissolve in a couple of hours? Heh, um... What's your name? No no wait lemme guess, um... Falcon-guy... Falcon man? Aah! Wait, no. There's already a Falcon. Umm... can you turn into any other animals? Only I'm pretty sure that guy's a war criminal right now... Ooh I know! You could-”

“You can call me Peregrine.” Harry interrupted, giving up on the _webs_. If he let Urban Tarzan continue he'd end up stuck with a horrible bird-man nickname. At least Peregrine was both relevant and something a parent might consider naming their child. Well... a wizard child. It could even do in a scrape for a Marauder nickname if shortened to Pippin.

“Peregrine! OK, cool, cool, I'm Spider-man.... Aah, you're er... actually a superhero... Right?” The guy, Spider-man, asked twitching nervously. “I mean, ha ha... Just because your face is a little _shady_ you're not like a _villain..._ or anything... ha...” He trailed off scratching at the back of his neck sheepishly trying to play it off as a joke. He remained tense but Harry didn't notice too busy trying to process that, yes, Urban Tarzan was really asking him if he was some sort of comic book style villain.

Meanwhile in the face of Harry's lack of immediate and vehement denial of villainy Urban Tarzan had begun to look increasingly uncomfortable. Harry was considering whether it might have been easier to have just brought some kind of mask with him for concealing his face. Instead, before he'd left for scouting he'd thrown on a scarlet red dragonhide jacket he never wore, gifted by the Weasley twins to their 'silent partner', and threw up a face shrouding charm anchored to the hood, effectively hiding his identity. It seemed that a 'small but significant sample' of heroes thought it made him look like a criminal though.

“Er, no. I'm not a villain.” Harry replied flatly, still a little off balance from the roundabout accusation but he rallied quickly. “I wouldn't really call myself a superhero either exactly...” He trailed off considering it. “I suppose it depends who you ask.” He hedged. The thing is he may been called a hero by the majority of the wizarding community since he was a year old but despite playing a major role in Voldemort final destruction he wasn't the sole contributor. Nor was he sure killing someone, even someone as irredeemably evil as Voldemort, could be considered heroic.

“What is it that makes someone a superhero?” Harry blurted out surprising himself. Urban Tar- Spider-man must have been surprised as well if the comically widened eye holes and his almost owl like head tilt were any indication.

“Um, what?” Spider-man eloquently articulated.

Before Harry could tell him to forget it Spider-man pulled himself together and awkwardly attempted to answer. “Er, I suppose a superhero is um, well, it's someone who has special powers or abilities like Mr St- er Iron Man with his suits or Mr Captain America with his super strength, but not um... It's not _just_ having strength that's important. It's also about acknowledging you can use that strength to protect people and then _doing_ it because _not_ protecting them when you can is as bad as hurting them yourself.” Spider-man finished passionately.

“Huh.” Harry murmured. Spider-man's previous eloquence apparently catching. He considered how similar Spider-man's words were to to Dumbledore's beliefs that you should always choose to do what's _right_ over taking the easy option. Perhaps this could be what Harry had been missing after the war. He been so caught up in no longer having some predestined purpose that he'd been ignoring all the ways he could get out into the world and actually help people.

Well... Maybe not so much back home. He could hardly take a step into the wizarding world without being mobbed by fans or reporters and if he'd tried using his abilities to help muggles he'd have been arrested by the aurors. Here though... Here there didn't appear to be any wizarding governments _enforcing_ separation from the non-magical community. Here he could use his magic to help everyday people and give himself some _purpose_ again. Not that he was going to so easily give up on getting home, but that would take time especially if he had to come up with a solution on his own. In the meanwhile....

Harry abruptly snapped his focus on Spider-man who reeled back from trying to get a closer look into the shadows of Harry's hood. “Will you teach me?” Harry demanded ignoring the attempt at seeing his face, or perhaps whether he had a face. While Harry _could_ go out on his own to start his... career? as a superhero, being shown the ropes by someone who seemed to already have an idea what they're doing was much preferable to fumbling about until he got the hang of it.

“I could pay you for your time.” Harry bargained when he didn't get a response. A decent chunk of his gold had come with him to this world and it was worth a lot more here than he was expecting considering the goblin exchange rate back home.

“What! Hey, no. I'm not- you're- um... Look, I was just a little... _surprised_ you want my help getting started. I'm not going to make you pay me. What kind of hero would I be if i did that.” Spider-man answered brightly. His tone gave Harry the impression he was grinning in delight behind the mask.

He wasn't all that comfortable taking Spider-man's time and assistance without giving him anything in return but he thought he recognised that shade of pride in Spider-man's tone. It reminded Harry of Ron's refusal to take 'charity' from him whenever anything to do with money came up.

Never mind, Harry would just have to find another way to return the favour. If it meant closely _observing_ Spider-man in future interactions so he could find a way to do so? Well, that was just a burden Harry was duty bound to carry wasn't it.

“What's you phone number? I'll text you before my patrol tomorrow so you can join me.” Spider-man's voice jolted Harry from his... _virtuous_ planning.

“Er, I don't actually have a phone. I'm... rather new here. Haven't had a chance to pick one up yet.” Harry said, not technically lying. He probably should see about getting some sort of mobile phone. They seemed to be essential for communication in this world. “I'll pick one up this evening and send you a, er... text message if you leave me _your_ number.” Harry offered, subtly conjuring a pen and notepad to pull from a pocket.

“Yeah man, no problem.” Spider-man chirped and gave Harry his number.

“Great, thank you for this. I'll see you tomorrow then?” Harry asked. He'd need to get a move on if he wanted to get the phone today.

“Yeah!” Spider-man exclaimed sounded delighted again as if it was Harry doing _him_ the favour. “Ooh shoot.” He said after checking the time. “I'm going to be late. See you tomorrow.” He yelled over his shoulder while swinging off to the next building.

Harry watched him jump and twist and swing his way from building to building as he disappeared into the distance.

“Looking forward to it.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Holy shit! So this guy wants you to be like his mentor or something?” Ned exclaimed as he and Peter exited chemistry, their last class for the day. They were quickly swept up in the tide of students flooding the halls.

“Uh, yeah basically.” Peter mumbled distractedly, too busy checking none of the other students were listening in.

“Dude! That's awesome!” Ned almost screamed in excitement. “You totally have to introduce me. He's new right? When he gets known people will be like 'have you seen that new guy Peregrine' and I'll be like 'my bro Peregrine? Yeah we go way back', and they'll be all 'but he's so new' and I'll be 'yeah but I totes knew him before he was famous' and-”

“Hey! Hey, man come on. I haven't even taken him on patrol yet.” Peter interrupted before Ned could really get on a roll. Even now months after learning Peter is Spider-man it was practically a weekly occurrence for Ned to find some new aspect to enthuse about.

“Yeah but come on dude, how often do you get the chance to be the first one to meet a new superhero. I wonder if he needs a guy in the chair too. Not that I'd superhero cheat on you but- Oh! Oh, dude you said he's young right? You can start your own superhero group. You could be like the junior Avengers and I'll be your guy in the chair!”

Peter who'd already turned down an offer to join the real Avengers wasn't quite so thrilled.

Even though the offer had turned out to be a test from Mr Stark, Peter had made his decision because he'd realised he wasn't quite ready to make being Spider-man his whole life like would almost inevitably happen as an Avenger. Besides, being a small time vigilante was rewarding in it's own ways. It allowed him to keep his ear to the ground for trouble he might overlook with the responsibilities of an official Avenger and he got the satisfaction of helping people up close and personal.

“I didn't mean he was, you know, _young_ young.” Peter replied hoping to head this off before Ned got his hopes up. “He was maybe in his mid twenties I guess... Definitely not as old as most of the Avengers... I think. It was kind of hard to tell with the hood and the creepy shadows... Actually come to think of it the way he said he was ' _new here'_ was pretty weird. He could be a thousand year old alien for all I know...... Holy crap! Do you think he's an alien?” Peter demanded, finding the thought all too plausible.

“I don't know dude... Didn't you say he sounded British?” Ned sounded dubious.

“Exactly!” Peter exclaimed before realising he'd need to explain. “I asked Mr Stark about the other Avengers last week- I mean, not the criminal ones but like Thor and Doctor Banner and he was complaining about how weird it was that Thor has a Shakespearean accent. It could totally be an alien thing.” Considering all of the crazy things that had happened over the last few years Peter wasn't going to rule anything out before he got some decent evidence one way or the other.

“I still can't believe Tony Stark gave you a real internship.” Ned said dreamily making his priorities obvious.

Mind you, Peter still couldn't quite believe it either.

Mr Stark had contacted him a few days after Peter passed his test with the Avengers membership offer to offer Peter an official internship. Apparently Mr Stark thought much of the mess with the Vulture could have been avoided if he'd been taking a more active role in mentoring Peter.

While the offer was officially considered a personal internship under Mr Stark in his role as the head of Stark Industries R&D department it was in reality a combination of superhero training and working on upgrades and maintenance for his suit under Mr Stark's direction with a few engineering projects thrown in to keep the paperwork looking appropriate. Or rather as appropriate as could be expected when interning directly under Tony Stark.

Peter would get a ride with Happy upstate to the Avenger's compound every other Saturday for the Spider-man side of the internship so they could make use of the training facilities and labs there. The engineering projects on the other hand were competed in Mr Stark's personal lab in the New York city branch of Stark Industries. These were mostly completed in Peter's own time after school and so the internship came with limited access to Mr Stark's personal lab. To Peter's relief this meant he longer had to use his school lab for mixing web fluid.

The cherry on top of the already decadent offer was that, after much convincing from Peter, Mr Stark had agreed to re-unlock access to the suit's A.I. Karen on the condition that Peter would unlock the training-wheel protocols by actually completing the training modules rather than getting his friend Ned to hack it again.

Needless to say, this was a dream come true for Peter.

“So have you told Tony Stark about meeting this Peregrine guy?” Ned's question pulled Peter from his ~~daydreaming~~ contemplation of his internship.

“What? No... Why? Do you think I should?” Peter supposed he could see why Ned might think so. Peregrine _did_ look kind of shifty with the (snakeskin?) jacket and whatever was up with the shadows in his hood. The hood was particularly creepy. Peter had managed to get a close up look the day before while Peregrine was distracted and still couldn't see a thing. It was like there was a hole in the world where there should have been a head. Still, he didn't seem like a bad guy.

“Don't look at me. You're the one who knows them both.” Ned deflected. Which, fair enough. Still... Peter didn't want to bring Mr Stark into this unless he absolutely had to. He knew it was irresponsible but he couldn't help it. A new superhero had asked _him_ Peter Parker to show them the ropes and it was an amazing boost to his confidence. OK so he'd technically asked Spider-man but that was semantics.

“No. No, it'll be fine. I mean... Mr Stark probably already knows. You know he can check the footage from my suit.” Though Mr Stark had told Peter he didn't bother unless Peter mentioned something unusual happening on patrol.

A car horn honking cut through their conversation and Peter looked up to see Ned's mum waving impatiently from the pick up queue. Which, actually, after checking the time Peter realises he needs to get moving himself.

“Sorry Ned, I've got to be at the deli on 21st by three to meet Prergrine.” He talks over Ned before he can get in more demands to meet the new superhero. “I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.”He yells over his shoulder already jogging for the bus interchange. If he hurries he might make the 2.16pm to Queensbridge.


	3. Chapter 3

Stumbling down to the kitchen for breakfast the lonely echoing halls of the residence formally known as 12 Grimmauld Place made Harry _almost_ wish Kreature was still around. The elf's attitude had improved considerably after the destruction of Regulus's stolen horcrux, though he never lost his ingrained beliefs about blood purity. Actually if old age hadn't taken him already, appearing in a world full of muggles would have finished him off, so it was a moot point. Still, if Kreacher had been around when Harry was modifying the house wards he might have been able to give Harry advise that would have avoided this whole mess.

At first Harry had thought the attention he got after the war would die down and he'd be able to get on with Auror training like he'd planned. The thing is while the initial furore did settle down fairly quickly it only made way for all the crazy stalkers and invasive journalists to come out of the woodwork. Harry _may_ have been a _little_ hasty in changing the ward settings at Grimmauld Place because of this.

At the time it had seemed a perfect solution to his problems and he _had_ thoroughly investigated the wards before fiddling with them. Well he'd thought so at the time at least.

Expectedly from a paranoid and often bugnuts crazy family like the Blacks the wards were... excessive. Though, to their credit they had thoroughly documented any additions and changes in a volume stored in the Black library. There were even lists of ward arrangements pre-set for various needs and with centuries of Blacks updating, adding to, and powering the wards Grimmauld Place was a veritable fortress.

Unfortunately the Blacks were only fleetingly acquainted with the concept of a proportionate response. By far the majority of the ward options integrated into the overall schema began with lethal and ramped up to nightmarishly horrifying.

Since Harry was not fending off invading armies but trying to keep out the Rita Skeeter style of reporters and prevent rabid fans from breaking into his underwear draw he was not too keen on turning random people knocking on his door into dead Lovecraftian horrors.

This was thankfully not necessary. It appeared that the Blacks did in fact have the occasional sane(ish) member and there were a range of non-lethal settings available. In fact the wards had already made use of one of these settings since Sirius took up residency in the house at the end of Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts. Granted, the house no longer had the added protection of the Fidelius charm but neither were the wards set anywhere near as high as they could go even for the non-lethal options.

Having looked over the available options Harry eventually decided on a pre-set schema that was said to be guaranteed to keep out non-authorised persons and also not actually harm anyone trying to break in. This second point was essential considering the _concerning_ range of options the Black family classified under non-lethal. He shuddered. Sometimes death was the kind option.

This second point also turned out to be Harry's downfall. Usually when the Black wards were set to completely disallow the entry of non-authorised persons there would be a lethal last resort regardless of what settings were engaged. After all, no wards are infallible and from the Black's perspective if an enemy was going to be persistent enough to get through their wards then it was better the intruder be removed permanently.

However, by setting the wards to be incapable of harming intruders Harry had unknowingly engaged an alternative last resort method for preventing intrusion, removing the _house_ from the vicinity of the _intruder_.

This was all well and good if you prepared in advance to have an anchor for the house in a secondary location. If you didn't quite know what you were doing however... Harry had the privilege of finding out first hand what happens when that countermeasure activates without an anchor after a clever (if mentally unsound) fan tried to send their house elf to steal his drawers.

Being a pureblood family with a disdain for the abilities of those they considered lesser and not wanting to inconvenience themselves, the Blacks had failed to set wards to prevent the entry of house elves. Thus when said house elf tried to gain entry all that stood in the way was the non-lethal last resort and the house was dislodged from it's location at 12 Grimmauld Place. Lacking any anchor to an other locations the house began to drift untethered from space and time. If it wasn't for the disturbance to the planetry shield on this new world drawing the house in, it might have drifted for an eternity.

Though that was thankfully not the case, Harry still needed to find a way to get _back_ home to his own world and so far the training with Spider-man seemed like his best option for gaining a lead.

He spent the rest of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon checking a few of his notes on the wards. While he'd not known about the fail-safe that sent him to this world before it was used, he'd since scoured the Black library for any and all information on it. Too late he'd found the information on setting secondary anchors for the wards but he though he could use it now to make his life a little easier. Currently the house was in Hong Kong where it had landed upon entry to this world. With a little bit of fiddling Harry was sure he could deliberately re-anchor the house in New York where he'd be spending the most time for now.

That was a matter for later however. After tidying up his notes and ensuring he had his jacket and obscuring charm in place Harry made one last check with his new phone to confirm the apparation co-ordinates for his meeting.

He'd gone into a phone store last night and been completely lost when confronted with dozens of handset options with even more options for payment plans. Thankfully he was quickly accosted by an enthusiastically helpful sales clerk even if she was perhaps a little _too_ enthusiastic after being informed of his budget.

She'd been only too happy to educate him on why he absolutely _needed_ the latest Stark Phone on the market. Harry could see the appeal of the holographic 3D secondary display and the transparent main screen was nice too. He just wasn't sure it was worth the four figure price tag considering some of the 'smart phones' a quarter of the price seemed like they'd do anything Harry would ever need them to anyway.

In any case he'd been able to message Spider-man to set up a joint patrol and had even managed to figure out how to use the map app on his phone to find apparation coordinates for his meeting tomorrow. Granted he was fairly sure a five year old could have done the same considering how intuitively the phone operated. Perhaps it was worth the money after all.

Spider-man wasn't at the meeting place when Harry apparated in so he transformed into his animagus form to keep a lookout and avoid attracting attention.

He was still getting used to manoeuvring as a bird since he'd only completed the transformation a couple of weeks before arriving in this new world. At least all that time being barricaded in his house to hide from the nutjobs had been good for something. Still, even with all the practice he'd been getting with his search, he was glad for his natural flying talent.

Circling the deli he strained his falcon eyes seeking that speck of red and blue.... There! Coming in from the South around the rooftops. Harry planned out a course for interception and dived.

He screeched in exhilaration despite his instincts urging him to remain silent for the kill. Diving on a broom didn't even come close to the thrill of a two hundred mile per hour dive head first with the sensitivity of control achieved by only small adjustments of his folded wings. He hurtled through the air making sure to keep his aim just ahead of the rapidly growing red and blue form. He unthinkingly positioned himself talons out in preparation for collision when his prey alerted by some sixth sense changed course mid-swing with a fired web leaving Peregrine grasping at air.

He snapped his wings out to pull from the dive and regain some altitude. Levelling off the tunnel vision rapidly faded allowing for the realisation he'd allowed his instincts to get away from him and almost attacked Spider-man who was now perched on the side of a building watching him warily.

Winging his way down to the roof below Spider-man Harry transformed mid-landing in a move he most certainly hadn't spent hours practising to pull off smoothly.

“Er, Peregrine?” The masked hero questioned from above looking ready to spring away if attacked.

Merlin this was embarrassing. Harry knew how his instincts kicked in when he dived. He should have been prepared for it rather than letting himself get swept away with the hunt. Bollocks.

“Sorry. I'm, er.. Bugger it all, that wasn't intentional.” Harry attempted to defend himself. “It's the falcon instincts. I, er.. I sort of got... carried away with diving towards you and um... _thoughtyouwereprey_.” Harry finished in a rush as if that would make it sound any better. What a great impression he was making.

Interestingly telling Spider-man he'd essentially been thinking of him as food had the opposite effect than expected. Spider-man seemed to forget to be wary and jumped down to the roof near Harry, tilting his head like a curious bird.

“Oh? So... Does that mean your really a falcon when you transform? Only I'd been thinking it was just a physical transformation but if you have different instincts there must be a mental aspect to it. I mean, you can't be a normal falcon when you're like that or you'd have gone off hunting other birds or something so you must have some control over it. How does it work?”

Harry was a little stunned by the barrage. Merlin, it was like Hermione when someone showed her a complicated spell she found interesting.

“Uh.” Harry hesitated, mentally changing tracks. He wasn't sure how much he should be explaining here. His first reaction was to gloss over the details and make out it was simply a natural talent like some of this world's residents developed. On the other hand that was mostly due to how he'd been taught to uphold the statute of secrecy which didn't exist in this world. Also... It _might_ be slightly difficult to learn this heroing business if he was constantly having to make excuses for the magic he'd be using _in_ said business.

“Sorry, um. You don't have to- I mean, I was just curious. I'm not like, going to-” He'd hesitated too long and Spider-man was backtracking.

“No it's fine.” Harry cut in, his decision made. “It's a little complicated to explain is all. How much do you know about magic?” Hopefully he wasn't about to get ridiculed for 'believing in magic'.

“You mean like Loki, Mr Thor's brother?” Aah right... Norse gods were a thing here. Interesting that the legends were similar in his home world and yet as far as he knows they don't actually exist back there.

“Mmm, not sure... I haven't had a chance to see his magic in action.” Not that it should be all that different. As far as he knew magic still had to work with the same basic rules regardless of school.

“Well Mr Star- I mean Iron Man said that Mr Thor said that on Asguard, magic and science are the same thing so I suppose it's just really advanced technology... Not that I know how that works with the illusions and teleporting. I mean I'm pretty sure Loki didn't have any technology for that when he attacked or someone would have take it off him so there's go to be more to it I think.”

Well that _sort_ of matched what Harry would expect from an advanced magical society.

“Right that's... similar I suppose. I'd probably word it more that magic and technology are different methods for, er, making practical use of scientific understanding if that makes sense. I suppose they can be blended together-” At least on this world. The amount of free magic in this world was insane. It was almost suffocating before he grew used to it. “-which makes sense if Asguard is as advanced as I think it is. I wouldn't be surprised if the Iron Man armour did something similar come to think of it.”

This seemed to pique Spider-man's interest causing him to almost bounce in excitement and curiosity... It was adorable. Harry might have to make a re-estimate of his age even., he seemed younger like this with his Mr's and excitability. Could be as low as 21 or 20... That's barely a gap from Harry's 18 surely, even with muggles shorter lifespans.

“Okay, don't think we're not coming back to you using _magic_ to turn into a falcon. I need to at least know some of what else you can do before we start patrol anyway but um... I'm pretty sure Mr Stark doesn't know enough about magic to use it in his armour and I've helped him work on it a couple of times so I mean, unless I'm missing something, I know it's technological... _Advanced_ technology, yeah sure, but what even is the difference that makes something magic instead? Because you talk like they're separate but- Huh? No Karen pleas- oh crap... Mr Stark! Um hi.” Peter cut off mid sentence turning away slightly and putting his fingers on his ear only to start talking people who weren't there. “Wait! Wait, hold on a second Mr Stark.” He turned back to Harry radiating embarrassment. “Um sorry Peregrine. Mr Stark just called me through my suits A.I. Karen. He's um.. Sort of like my sponsor with the suit any everything. Can you give me a second?” He finished with an amazingly effective kicked puppy look considering he wore a full face mask. Must be the strange eye shutters in his mask.

“Yeah um, no problem.” Harry blurted without thinking. As if he could have said no to that look.

Spider-man muttered his thanks looking relieved and hopped over to the other side of the roof to continue his conversation with, well, Tony Stark apparently. Even as new to this world as Harry was he knew just what a big deal Tony Stark was here. He briefly debated throwing an eavesdropping charm so he could hear the conversation but ultimately decided against it. So far Spider-man had been nothing but kind and generous to him and he didn't want to repay that by sneaking behind his back to listen to a private conversation.

The conversation was over quickly anyway but from the forlorn slump of Spider-man's shoulders as he walked back it hadn't gone as well as he'd like.

“So...” Spider-man trailed off scratching the back of his neck in discomfort. Harry didn't think he had good news. “Um... so, um... _wouldyoumindcomingtomeetMrStark_.”

“Sorry, what?” Harry blurted in surprise. Not that he hadn't understood Spider-man. If nothing else, his years of friendship with Hermione had given him a talent for decoding word vomit. He just didn't see why a figure like Tony Stark would be interested in meeting some new 'superhero' who hadn't even shown what he was capable of yet.

“Sorry, um... Because he made my suit for me and um, like I said, is kind of my sponsor he can access my suits camera footage if he wants.” Which wasn't _at all_ alarming. “I mean he doesn't usually, I totally would have mentioned it if I thought he was watching.” He babbled out probably in reaction to some sign of alarm Harry had let slip. “Sorry, I probably should have mentioned that before but I don't really think about it much. I mean he kind of looks out for me to make sure I don't get in over my head but he's doesn't usually look up the footage unless I tell him something strange happened on patrol. He um, said he installed a protocol in the suit to alert him if I talk about him a lot though.” Yeah, Harry wasn't sure how much he believed that even if Spider-man seemed convinced. “But um, he looked up the footage and is kind of um... Well he isn't really sure if he trusts you. Something about not finding a background for you I think which I'm _so_ sorry he kind of doesn't seem to understand privacy sometimes.”

Aah bollocks. He'd apparently found Tony Stark's protégé and proceeded to act enough like a potentially dangerous, suspicious magic user trying to get close to him that Stark had decided he was a threat. Potter luck strikes again!

“Anyway he really wants to meet you and he said you need to know some things about the accords if you're going to patrol with me.” Oh Merlin, the kicked puppy look was making a return. “Can we go and see him before our patrol?”

Oh balls. How was he going to get out of this one... No. Wait. Why would he want to get out of it. Stark might be suspicious of his motives at the moment but when was Harry likely to get another chance to talk with one of the most well connected and respected heroes in the world. This could actually lead to some progress on finding the magic users of the world. Surely if any heroes had knowledge of them it would be Stark.

Besides, if worst came to worse he could always apparate out. If may be more difficult in this world, probably due to the much stronger free magic, but he'd only apparated once so far today even if it was intercontinental, he could manage a few more at least.

“Alright, where are we meeting him?” Hopefully it wasn't too far, he'd still like to get some of this patrolling in after they finished.

“It'll only be for a few minutes and I think there might be some legal issue with the accords he wants to work out with you so it's probably better you get it sorted in case- Wait... You're going?” Spider-man sounded disbelieving. He probably expected more resistance which, well, there would be if he didn't have an ulterior motive for the meeting.

“Yeah, sounds important. Wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of the law by accident.” Which was actually true despite his record as a _law-abiding model citizen_ **cough**. Usually if he was breaking the law he was doing it entirely deliberately or at least knowingly.

“Oh, awesome.” Spider-man responded a little flatly squinting his little eye shutters at him suspiciously.

“So... Where are we going.” Harry prompted when Spider-man continued to stare at him.

“Right, sorry. He's going to meet us at Stark Tower. He um, sent a car for us.” Oh right, there was some kerfuffle in the news not long after Harry arrived about the tower and how Stark backed out of a sale at the last minute. He didn't miss that a car had already been sent before Spider-man asked Harry if he was going. Probably Spider-man was meant to _tell_ Harry he was going to the tower rather than ask.

“Hey Peregrine.” Spider-man hesitantly called for his attention. “Is there maybe something you can do to make your ah, hood thing a bit less... creepy I guess. Not that I'm saying it looks bad but the whole void in the universe look kinda makes you look a little dangerous.”

Aah, the concealing charm. It was usually considered a bit disconcerting even among witches and wizards who were used to magic. It was probably worse if you weren't. Thankfully the spell was reasonably flexible. He'd set it up for full concealment originally because he hadn't actually planned to interact with anyone while using it. Perhaps if he let his eyes show through and reduced the opacity in the lower half of his face a bit. That would at least make it look more on the shadowy side rather than a 'void in the universe'.

“How's that, any better?” Harry asked after making the adjustments. If might not be quite as protective of his identity but it should still conceal him from facial recognition technology at the least.

“Uh, No. No it's really not.” Spider-man shuddered visibly. Oh well. Stark had already seen his disguise through a recording. It couldn’t be that much worse in person... Right?

Spider-man was distracted from further comments by something from his suit, probably the A.I. talking to him again, and Merlin his life was getting strange talking about A.I.'s and superheros.

“Hey Peregrine, the car's here.” Spider-man called alerting Harry to the frankly ridiculously expensive car pulling up at the curb below them. Hopefully this wasn't going to blow up in his face.


	4. Chapter 4

The ride to Stark Tower was silent and awkward.

Spider-man had given the driver, a man name Happy the poor chap, a chirpy greeting on entering the car only for the privacy divider to be silently raised. This struck Harry as excessively rude and set the tone for the rest of trip.

Harry himself wasn't much better considering he now knew he was on camera. Anything he did or said could be monitored and even played back at a later point by Tony Stark and who knew who else. This did _not_ encourage free conversation and the only saving grave was that the trip was reasonably short being only a fifteen minute drive.

On arrival they exited the car in a restricted parking garage beneath the building. Harry followed Spider-man into what looked like a private elevator where they were greeted by a disembodied voice.

“Good afternoon Spider-man, Mr Peregrine. Boss is waiting for you in the labs.” The elevator began rising.

Thanks Friday.” Spider-man responded cordially. Apparently he knew the speaker. Harry tilted his head in question.

“Oh right sorry, that's Friday, Mr Starks A.I. She pretty much runs the whole tower.” Spider-man informed blithely like he completely missed how alarming that was. It was a good thing Harry could apparate out if he got desperate.

Harry was quiet for the rest of the long elevator ride up to what must have been one of the top floors. He could do without any more disturbing revelations for the moment.

On reaching the correct floor it was only a short walk before they went down a set of stairs to a curved room with glass walls. Beyond the glass the space was divided into three separate rooms filled with high-tech equipment. They each had a security door leading to them but only one was occupied.

Spider-man moved towards the door to that room which opened automatically before he could reach it. Harry attempted to follow.

“Uh uh Gandalf. You shall not pass. This is a wizard free zone. We respect the laws of the universes in this lab.” The room's occupant called out halting Harry in the doorway. Stark presumably.

“Since when.” Spider-man quipped, continuing into the room.

Harry however was confused. Hadn't Stark requested he come here?

“I _do_ respect the laws of the universe?” He tried, hoping it was what Stark was after. It was mostly true.

“Hah! Prove it.” Stark declared like every 1st grader ever, pointing his finger at Harry dramatically.

And oh. This made a lot more sense.

“Are you trying to _provoke_ me into letting you run tests on my magic?” Harry asked dubiously.

He was certain he'd hit the nail on the head when Stark continued pointing silently, opening his mouth every couple of seconds as if unable to come up with an argument. Surely he didn't think he'd been subtle.

He dropped his hand.

“Is it working?” He asked.

Harry had to grudging give him credit for boldness if nothing else

“Nothing?.. Tough crowd.” Stark muttered. He seemed half distracted, playing around with some sort of holographic schematic Harry hadn't noticed coming in. “Alright Gandalf, what is it you think you're going to accomplish stepping up to the plate at a time like this?” Seems the interrogation was beginning.

Harry didn't have to think too hard about it to realise he didn't have anything to lose by telling Stark the truth.

“I suppose... An old professor of mine used to say that there comes a time when we have to choose between doing what's _easy_ or what's _right_ and I think if I didn't make the effort to use my abilities to help people I'd be taking the easy option.” There, that was inoffensive enough that Stark shouldn't be able to find fault... Why was Stark groaning.

“Oh hell, another one.” Stark muttered, voice muffled by his hands covering his face. Before Harry could work out where he'd gone wrong Stark had recovered.

“Look that's... very sweet. I can feel my teeth rotting just listening to you but this _really_ isn't the best time to start off as a superhero. The accords are still in flux and while I'm making progress on changing them into something beneficial rather than just restrictive, I need a few more months before they get there. At the moment anyone with special abilities is required to sign them and be monitored regardless of whether they are even using their powers for fighting. You're better off keeping your head down till I get it sorted. The only reason Underoos over there gets away with keeping his identity secret is because I'm personally vouching for him. Even that wouldn't be enough if he wasn't under-age and sticking to fighting street crime.

“You're having me on.” Harry blurted out unable to hide his disbelief. “No chance he's under twenty. Even that's pushing it with the shoulders and that ars- rrms **cough** sorry, and those um arms.” He knew he was missing the point but _really._ Stark couldn't honestly expect him to believe Spider- _man_ was a minor. Surely none of these accords people actually bought that.

Stark looked to be holding back laughter, the prat.

“That's right red riding hood. Jail. Bait. So don't go getting any ideas.”

“Mr Stark!” Spider-man squawked sounding mortified but he wasn't denying it. Huh, looks like he really is a minor.

“Merlin, what do you people eat here, radioactive weetabix?”

They both stilled at that as if Harry had hit a little too close to home.

Ugh, he was getting nowhere like this. Stark needed a reason to trust him or he was just going to wash his hands of Harry. He didn't have too many options if he wasn't going to give this whole trip up as a bad job. Quickly, before he could change his mind Harry flipped his hood down dragging the obscuring charm with it.

“Look can we um, can we start again? My name's Harry Potter.” Stark looked pained.

"Oh shit. You're a kid." Which, hey! He wasn't _that_ young. Meanwhile Spider-man let out a strangled noise in the background.

"Please tell me your parents know about this." Stark said shooting a pointed look at Spider-Man. A hint of confusion flashed on Stark's face before he settled on a knowing smirk.

"Er..." This was awkward. Harry never really had to tell people about his orphan status back home. It was practically what he was famous for.

"They um, died when I was a baby." He muttered uncomfortably.

There was a heavy pause before Stark groaned, face-palming. “You're actually Oliver Twist aren't you.” He said in disbelief. “Next thing you'll tell me you were kicked out out of home and you're wandering the streets.” The expectant stare Stark levelled at him said that yes Stark was really expecting such a response.

“I... didn't get _kicked_ out.” Harry muttered, perhaps a bit petulantly. He couldn't really claim he hadn't left home considering he was in a completely different universe, and well, he'd basically spent his whole time here 'wandering the streets' looking for signs of magic...

Stark was back to looking pained.

“Just tell me you've got somewhere to stay kid.” Stark practically begged.

At least this one he could answer positively.

“Oh yeah, it's fine. My house came with me.”

This drew a deadpan stare from Stark and even Spider-man managed to look disbelieving through the mask. Stark mouthed the words 'house came with me' apparently trying to see if they made more sense when spoken.

“You know what. No. Start from the beginning.” Stark demanded, giving up. Which _fine_. It wasn't Harry's preference to go spilling his guts but he needed the help if he wanted to get home. It wasn't the time to be coy with details.

He explained to the two heroes how his house wards had malfunctioned when they'd been attacked (not that he gave the details on the 'attack') and how that had resulted in his home floating untethered beyond the space-time continuum until it had crash landed in Hong Kong due to a local failure in the dimensional barrier. Thankfully neither hero was disbelieving though Stark did ask a lot of follow up questions specifying the exact dates and times involved as well as dragging out everything Harry could remember about the fighting going on in the streets at the time of his arrival.

“I've changed my mind.” Stark announced, done with grilling Harry for now. “You're not Oliver Twist. You're Dorothy.” He concluded with a note of relish.

Harry didn't appreciate the comparison. Stark on the other hand seemed to think he was clever.

“Of course the real question is... where's Toto?” He smirked.

As always when dogs were mentioned around Harry this just reminded him of his godfather Sirius. He would have found this world full of superheroes hilarious. Whether he would have played at being a superhero himself Harry wasn't sure. In all honesty he'd probably have been more of a force of chaos than order.

Some of his grief must have slipped because Stark was suddenly avoiding eye contact and talking a mile a minute like he could just... wash over his previous comment.

“Friday, start a new project file titled 'Dorothy from Oz' and get started on laying a trail for a new identity.”

“Got it Boss.” The disembodied voice of Stark's A.I. chirped.

“Kid, I might not have any magic slippers for you right now but I _can_ help you get established in the meanwhile. _God,_ do you need that more than you know. At the moment you have _zero_ legal protection if anyone catches onto you. How old are you again? Eighteen? Right, no. Friday, make sure the records list him as sixteen. It'll be a pain for guardianship but he'll pass easily enough and it'll give me more time to get the accords changes pushed through.” Rude.

Stark was on a roll now and didn't appear to be stopping any time soon despite Harry's attempts to interrupt. Harry tried to point out that he didn't plan on staying long enough for all this to be necessary but Stark just talked over him demanding details about his past like his birth date, who he'd lived with growing up, where he'd travelled, and _so_ much more, all apparently to help build a past that matched his life as closely as possible so he wouldn't slip up if asked about it. It was actually very impressive if frustrating.

“School... Right, kid look. I _could_ slip a high school diploma in here but there's a couple of problems with that. One, it's going to look odd if a 'sixteen year old' isn't going to school and you can't afford to draw that kind of attention until you're better established. Two, the more your record is legitimate and the more live witnesses you have backing it up the less likely anyone's going to figure out it's fake. How are your grades?”

Oh Merlin.

“I'm.. not quite sure.” He prevaricated. It wasn't an easy question to answer.

“How can you not be sure?” Stark sounded exasperated but compromised. “At least tell me which subjects you took.”

The thing is Harry didn't particularly feel like compromising. How solid did his background really need to be when he was leaving for home the first chance he got. It seemed excessive considering. He told Stark so.

“Look kid this is more important than you think. There are a _lot_ of people out there who'd use any means they can to work out how superheroes tick. One of the worst of the lot is Ross, the Secretary of State, who _will_ lock you up for study if he gets the slightest excuse. He's tried it before.” Stark sounded genuinely concerned.

This was sounding much worse than Harry had gathered from the media coverage.

“Right now minors are still pretty deep in the grey areas of the legalise which means I can get away with hiding Spider-man and probably you as well so long as the committee trusts that I'm monitoring you well enough.”

Stark was interrupted by Spider-man's quiet 'oh' of surprise.

“That's... Is that why you were so angry after the ferry incident Mr Stark?” Spider-man asked softly drawing a tired sigh from Stark.

"Yeah, that was _not_ easy to sweep under the rug Underoos.” They shared a look of understanding before Stark focused back to Harry.

“Right, so the point is, you can't afford to be forced into signing the accords and revealing your identity which you _will_ be if they think you're an adult. Even if they accept my supervision there's always the chance someone will figure out your identity and that's when you _need it to be as airtight as possible_.” He finished with emphasis.

Harry forced himself to consider the point Stark was making and weighed it against the hindrance going to high school would be for finding a way home. On the one hand it would leave him with only a fraction of the time he currently had for searching. There was no avoiding that. But on the other hand going along with it would necessitate Stark maintained contact with him at least for a while. That would potentially mean he could use Stark's resources making his search much more efficient than the blind 'hope he stumbles on something' approach he'd been using.

Actually even if he _could_ get Stark's help without going along with this whole identity lark the fact that he'd be using Stark's connections and acting more publicly would significantly increase his risk of being found out and caught up in these accords anyway.

Probably what settled it for Harry was the realisation there was _no chance_ Stark was going to let him have anything to do with Spider-man if doing so was going to risk Harry dragging him into the accords mess.

“Ok I see your point.” Harry conceded, then realised how ungrateful he sounded. _Merlin_ he was acting like an entitled ponce when Stark was going out of his way to help him.

“I er... appreciate all the help you're giving me Mr Stark. It's very generous of you.”

Stark looked honestly taken aback at this which just made Harry feel more of a berk.

“Great that's... Good decision.” For a moment Stark looked almost bashful but it was gone in a flash, hidden beneath a mask of disinterest.

“In a few months I should have some amendments pushed through making allowances for superheroes with secret identities. By the time either of you turns eighteen officially you shouldn't need to reveal your identity unless you want to and if the case I'm building against Ross pans out that won't be nearly as dangerous as it would be now.”

Harry rather hoped he wasn't here that long. Unfortunately considering his lack of progress so far it wasn't all that unlikely.

Having sorted out that _yes_ Harry was going to go to high school Harry tried to explain his schooling. He started by explaining the separation of the wizarding and muggle worlds and what that mean for his education after age eleven. Thankfully he wouldn't be completely behind on everything. It was impossible to do much of anything with magic if you didn't have the knowledge base to support it. Most subjects at Hogwarts covered as much if not more than the muggle equivalents in the sciences and mathematics and while they didn't study humanities or social sciences, they had plenty of practise researching and writing essays without the advantage of computers or search engines.

Stark after getting over his offence at the haphazard teaching of the sciences decided that they needed to know exactly where Harry stood in comparison to his 'peers' who would be juniors in high school. To accomplish this he set Friday on pulling up some placement tests for Harry to take this next Saturday at the Avenger's compound when Spider-man was going for his training.

They had to call it a day there as Stark had abandoned an important meeting on being alerted to Spider-man meeting up with a suspicious new hero.

Harry and Spider-man were almost out the door when Spider-man stopped suddenly, turning back to Stark.

“Um, Mr Stark... We can still go on patrol now, yeah? Or... do we have to wait till you've finished setting up um, Harry's identity” Harry hadn't even thought about that being an issue but Stark was looking between Harry and Spider-man contemplatively.

“If I say no, are you going to do it anyway?” He asked.

Spider-man instantly began stuttering denials but Harry kept carefully silent. He was fairly sure the risk was minimal now that Stark had agreed to vouch for him, and if worst came to worse they could surely delay any inquiries until Stark had time to get everything sorted. If Spider-man couldn't go with him he could just have a go at patrolling on his own. How hard could it really be.

Stark must have realised the same thing because he took on an air of being aggrieved.

“You know what, fine. Better you're both together where I can keep an eye on you.” He shooed them out the door,

It wasn't till Harry was once more being chauffeured back to Queens by the grumpy man named Happy that Harry realised... For all Stark made a big show of being gruff and uncaring, he was a hell of a lot kinder and more generous than the far majority of people Harry had met. He was going to have to make an effort not to take advantage of the man if he was always like this.


	5. Chapter 5

After Happy blanked Peter and raised the privacy screen, Peter immediately tried to think of anything he could have done lately to piss him off. They'd been getting on a lot better since the mess with the Vulture and while Happy didn't tend to be very talkative to Peter in front of other people, it was pretty strange no to be acknowledged at all, hurtful too if he was honest.

Thankfully he'd only had a couple of seconds to get worked up about it before Happy was calling him through the suit. He'd only raised the privacy screen so he couldn't be heard by Peregrine while he fed information to Peter.

Turns out Mr Stark was 'concerned' about Peregrine's intentions, especially since Mr Stark couldn't find even a hint of any records connected to him. Mr Stark wanted Peter to hang back a bit so he could try and get some information out of the new hero. As far as Mr Stark's resources (and Friday's) showed, the guy had just appeared out of nowhere only for Peter to almost literally run into him.

To make matters worse, it was apparently a 'delicate period' for some of the work Mr Stark was doing on the Accords. He thought it might be possible someone had sent Peregrine to get Peter in trouble as Spider-man since it would reflect badly on Mr Stark in front of the Accords panel for some reason.

Peter was fairly sure Peregrine didn't mean any harm but figured it was better to let Mr Stark work that out for himself if he didn't want him in helicopter mode for the foreseeable future. Mr Stark was a bit sensitive to the idea of betrayal these days and Peter couldn't exactly blame him. Besides, it doesn't hurt to check, just in case.

By the time Happy had finished filling Peter in, the atmosphere in the back of the car had turned awkward and Peter was lost for how to change it. It stayed like this until they got to the tower and Mr Stark attempted to make out that he _didn't_ redefine the laws of science and the universe whenever they were inconvenient to him.

Peter hung back in the lab, figuring it was better not to interfere unless Mr Stark started going overboard but he still couldn't help complaining when Mr Stark called him jail bait. It was humiliating, especially considering Peter was pretty sure Peregrine had almost complimented his ass. Sometimes Peter wished a skin-tight suit wasn't necessary for his wall crawling to work properly.

Peregrine's comment about radioactive 'weetabix' came uncomfortably close to the truth. It had Peter considering for a moment whether Mr Stark was right about Peregrine being sent to meet him, and if he knew more than he was letting on. That died a swift death when Peregrine went on to _take down his hood_ like it was nothing.

Peter choked on air, half from the surprise that Peregrine had so suddenly revealed his identity, and half because _holy shit_ he was _cute_... Cute and surprisingly young. Peter hadn't even realised glasses were a thing for him before this moment, but yeah okay, totally a thing.

Of course Parker luck had to kick in at that moment and Mr Stark looked over before Peter could reboot his brain.

The smirk Mr Stark gave him like he could tell exactly what Peter was thinking had his face flushing to match his mask. Thankfully Peregrine- or Harry he supposed, didn't seem to notice anything or Peter would have died from embarrassment.

He tuned out the conversation then but continued watching, there was something familiar about Harry that he couldn't put his finger on. It took an embarrassingly long time for his focus to back off Harry enough that he finally took in Mr Stark and Harry together. They had similar noses, the same flyaway dark hair, and there was something about the eyes...

Peter was well on his way to convincing himself he should be prepared for an unfortunate revelation of the consequence of Mr Stark's playboy days when Harry went in completely the other direction by telling them he was from a whole nother universe. Peter didn't look too closely at the discomfort he'd felt at his previous conclusion but noted it probably contributed to his rapid acceptance of Harry's alternate story.

Peter left them to it after Mr Stark started going into project mode about Harry's new identity. They didn't even notice when he started working on his latest intern-ship project which was his attempt at making an automatic vacuum cleaner that was actually useful. It wasn't ground breaking, but he needed to work on his programming and this was turning out to need near AI level software. Besides, Mr Stark had set up the intern-ship so Peter owned any designs he created, rather than the usual system where products designed with Stark Industries resources were property of Stark Industries. If it was marketable he'd be paid a small portion of any profit made from it.

He did keep an ear out and couldn't help but wonder if Mr Stark had made Harry's new identity Peter's age on purpose or if it really was just convenient for the Accords. If Mr Stark could get Harry into Midtown it would mean he and Peter would be taking some of the same classes which could be nice. That's if Mr Stark _would_ put Harry in Midtown. He probably wouldn't risk exposing Peter's identity like that unless Harry already knew beforehand.

This would require some thought...

 

* * *

 

The driver Happy was much more pleasant when dropping Harry and Spider-man back at the deli. He didn't chat during the drive but he did respond to Spider-man's farewell and even managed what could almost be considered a smile for the masked hero.

“Hey um, Peregrine, do you think we could talk on the roof of that apartment building?” Spider-man asked once the car pulled out. He was pointing to an old brick building next to the deli.

They were drawing attention so Harry decided it was a good idea.

“Yeah sure.” He transformed on the spot. He considered flying up to the building but impulsively perched on Spider-man's shoulder instead. The suit was tough, it could take his talons digging into it.

“Woah, uh, wha-” Spider-man flinched in surprise almost dislodging Harry from his shoulder. He tightened his grip.

“Okay, I guess you're coming with _me_ then?” Spider-man asked, sounding unsure.

Harry let out a squeaky 'ee-chup' next to Spider-man's ear in agreement making him jump.

Spider-man was unnecessarily careful when climbing the building, keeping his shoulder surprisingly stable. Even so, he was up over the roof in seconds.

Harry jumped off, transforming before his feet touched the roof.

“Cheers.” Harry chirped, then looked at Spider-man expectantly. He was the one who had wanted to talk after all.

“Oh uh, that's... cool. I just uh, well, we're not going to have a lot of time but I though we should probably go over what I normally do on patrol before we go anywhere. Um, maybe also we could share a bit about what we can do... If you want to I mean.”

Now that he knew what he was looking for it was a bit more obvious to Harry that Spider-man was still a teenager. He didn't really look like one in the suit and his voice didn't sound young, possibly a voice-modifier, but you could hear it in the _way_ he spoke if you paid attention.

“Sounds good to me.” He was kind of curious about what else Spider-man could do.

“Awesome.” Spider-man perked up noticeably.

“So... I usually just pick a route and swing around the buildings I guess. There's a few hotspots where you're more likely to find something going on but I try to mix it up a bit so people don't just avoid where I go and commit crimes somewhere else. It helps that I've got improved senses. Its _way_ to much to take in all at once consciously, but it gives me a sort of subconscious warning for trouble, especially when I'm in danger.”

That sounded incredibly useful to Harry. He couldn't count the number of scrapes he'd been in where even a few moments warning would have made all the difference.

“Anyway, I don't usually find a lot of crime on these patrols except for the small things, so I kinda just... help people where I can I guess. Most of the major stuff like robberies and building fires I go to when my suit's AI Karen finds them. She keeps a data string out on first responder communication for me.”

That was not going to be an option for Harry, except for when he was with Spider-man. If he didn't want to be completely dependent on Spider-man, which he didn't, he'd have to see if he could think up something for himself.

“That seems sensible enough.” Though he did wonder how they were going to patrol _together_ when he didn't have a hope of jumping and swinging around buildings like Spider-man. “You er, wanted to talk about our abilities you said.” They'd have a better shot at finding a solution if they knew what they were working with.

“Oh yeah. I'll go first... Um, like I said I've got enhanced senses and my spidey sense, ah, that's the danger warning I was talking about. You've probably noticed I'm pretty strong but I try not to use that too much in a fight cus it's _way_ too easy to mess someone up badly... Um, I've got enhanced durability and healing too, so I can take a pounding if I need to-”

Harry somehow managed to not react visibly at the double entendre.

“-and I've got really good balance and agility. Oh, and I can stick to walls, but you've seen that. The rest is stuff Mr Stark built into my suit and my web shooters that I mostly use for web-slinging or to stick people to stuff. It's really strong but it dissolves in a couple of hours.”

Harry had a feeling Spider-man had significantly downplayed his abilities. He hadn't mentioned anything the suit could do and Harry had seen some of Spider-man's 'web-slinging'. If a normal human attempted the same they'd either fall to their death or have their arms ripped off. Then again, if Harry attempted to go over _everything_ he was capable of with magic they'd be here for hours.

“My turn I suppose. I should probably start with the fact that the falcon is the only animal I can turn into, but you've probably guessed that by now.” Although that wasn't strictly true considering human to animal transfiguration. “Ok, it's the only animal I can change into and keep my human mind so that I can change back.” He allowed.

“Does that mean you can turn other people into animals? Because you'd still be able to turn them back then wouldn't you? Oh man, can you turn someone into a toad?” Spider-man interrupted sounding excited.

“Er, technically? Yes. Though they don't keep their mind when they're an animal. It's not very safe and it's extremely unpleasant for the person being transfigured.”

Spider-man drooped.

“Oh dude, that's a pain, but um, how do you do your falcon transformation then? Can't you just do the same thing to other people?”

Bollocks, he'd been hoping to avoid going down the rabbit hole called magical theory.

“Well... No. What I do isn't the same thing as just transfiguring someone into an animal. It's called the animagus transformation and it's only possible if you go through a fairly complicated process that changes you into what's called an animagus. You end up where you're both human _and_ whatever animal you turn into regardless of what shape you're in at the time, though the animal instincts are stronger when you're in animal form. That's one reason why not many people back home bother with it. You're essentially grafting an animal 'spirit' onto your own and you can't do that without it changing you to some degree. It's where the name comes from too. Anim from the Latin root meaning mind or spirit and magus which in this situation means wizard. Basically it's calling someone a 'spirit wizard' because they're a wizard and an animal spirit combined.”

Spider-man looked to be quickly digesting that information, so Harry tried to move things along before he asked more questions and they were stuck there all night discussing magical theory.

“Look, magic is pretty complicated, it's not just wave the wand, say the words, out pops the magic. How about I answer any questions you have about it on Saturday when we go to that Avenger's compound and for now I'll just give you an idea of what I can do so we can get some patrolling in?”

Spider-man visibly centred his thoughts.

“Oh yeah, that's probably a good idea. I have to be home in like, two hours anyway.”

Harry flicked a quick 'tempus' spell from his wand. It was just after five, they'd been at Stark Tower for longer than he'd thought.

“Right, essentially magic is only limited by knowledge and power, but I'll give you a list of a few things I can do that I think will be useful. I've got a load of inconveniencing spells like the leg-locker, jelly fingers, trip jinx, knock-back jinx... I'm sure you get the picture. There's also spells for immobilising someone like the incarcerous spell that ties someone up in conjured ropes, or the stunning spell which knocks someone out harmlessly. And then there's what I suppose you could call utility spells like the unlocking spell, a repair charm, a summoning spell, object levitation... Basically magic is the world's best multi-tool so long as you have the knowledge and skill to back it up.”

“Woah that’s... a lot. I'm going to have so many questions on Saturday.” It was fairly obvious Spider-man was having to actively holding back those questions.

Harry figured he better clear one more thing up before they left.

“Also, while I'm hardly invincible, wizards tend to be more physically durable than non-wizards." It was already pretty noticeable back home considering the main sport involves a couple of cannon balls hurtling around trying to knock people out of the air and it's rare to get serious injuries. For some reason the effect is even stronger here though. "I might not have super-strength but I'm not a delicate flower either.”

“That's... Good to know. Are you going fly as a falcon or do you have another way of moving quickly?”

Harry thought about mentioning apparition but he figured it was a good idea to have an ace up his sleeve for now, just in case.

“Yeah I'll follow you.” Harry confirms.

They spent the next hour moving over the streets in search of crime.

While there wasn't a lot of action it was a hell of a lot more interesting that Harry's solo flights had been. Just trying to keep up with Spider-man's erratic pace and tight turns was enjoyably challenging.

They only intervened in two situations that afternoon.

In the first, a man was using a hacksaw blade to cut through a bike lock and Spider-man had him webbed to the wall before Harry had even landed. Naturally this sparked Harry's competitive streak.

In the second situation, Harry was fast enough to 'accio' a lady's wedding ring from where she dropped it down a drain before Spider-man could use his web-shooters. Sadly the victory was soured somewhat by having to hand the ring back via Spider-man. Harry really had to rethink how to hide his identity if people were going to be _that_ intimidated by him using the obscuring charm.

They finished up after six at the Woodside station where they sat on the roof watching trains.

Unfortunately Harry needed to break the comfortable silence that had fallen between them. Stark hadn't told him the plans for Saturday so he assumed he was supposed to get the details from Spider-man.

“Hey, where do I need to go to meet the car on Saturday.” .

Spider-man stilled.

“Um, about that... Do you have uh, some kind of way to give us some privacy?”

They were sitting well above the crowds so Harry assumed he meant _secure_ privacy. He thought for a moment then flicked his wand twice sharply.

“ Anti-eavesdropping and an illusion of us sitting here quietly. So long as no one comes within about six feet of us we're set.” He explained.

Spider-man seemed to be trying to work himself up to something and Harry didn't like to push. Instead he settled back comfortably and flipped his hood down now that he was hidden from public view. It got annoying after a while.

He must have done something right because Spider-man appeared to firm his resolve and turned to face him.

“So I kind of feel bad about springing Mr Stark on you earlier and how you were sort of pressured into revealing your identity and everything. I um. I thought maybe I could make us even and then you could just meet me at my house Saturday.”

He reached for his mask.

“Hey! Hey no.” He reached over covering Spider-man's hands with his own, stopping him before him could reveal more than a sliver of neck.

“Look I appreciate the thought, I'm... flattered even that you'd trust me like that. It's fine though. I didn't have to reveal anything I didn't choose to today and I'd say it's worked out pretty well so far. I've been kind of stuck for progress the last couple of months and it looks like Stark is going to help me so... It's fine.”

Spider-man relaxed a little from his rigid tension and Harry removed his hands.

“Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better about it.” Spider-man sounded shy.

He took off his mask.

Soft brown hair spilled out over large doe eyes while shaky lips curved up in a nervous smile.

“My name's Peter. Peter Parker.”


	6. Bonus?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In advance, my most sincere apologies.

Falcon-mage, Falcon-mage,

Doesn't even get paid a wage

Flings a spell, at bad guys,

Turns those thieves, into flies

Look out!

Here comes the Falcon-mage

 

Is he strong?

Listen bud,

He's got magic inside his blood

Can he catch, a Web-head?

Take a look, in his bed

Hey, there

There goes the Falcon-mage

 

In the chill of night

At the scene of a crime

In a streak of flight

He arrives just in time

 

Falcon-mage, Falcon-mage

Friendly neighbourhood Falcon-mage

Runs from fame

It's abhorred

Spidey is

His reward

 

For sure, some people think he's cracked, but

When Spidey need some backup

You'll find the Falcon-mage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clear up any confusion, credit goes to the 1967 Spider-man animated series theme song for the original lyrics I modified for the above song.


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Saturday morning found a tired Harry shuffling nervously in the hall outside the Parker residence having just awkwardly knocked on the door. His shoulder bag was stuffed with his 'costume' and Gemino charmed copies of magical theory primers for Peter and Stark while his hands were juggling his hold on the coffee he'd picked up on the way so he wasn't arriving empty handed.

Following Spidey's revelation of his identity after their patrol on Thursday, they'd agreed to meeting up at Peter's apartment where they'd be picked up for their Saturday trip upstate.

Peter had offered to tell his aunt May that Harry was just an intern he'd met through Stark Industries, but after hearing how Peter's aunt already knew about Peter having used a fake intern-ship as a cover for his Spider-man related activities, and being uncomfortable making Peter lie to his only family, Harry had given him the go ahead to fill her in on the truth.

What Harry hadn't expected, but probably should have, was for this to prompt Peter's aunt to demand to meet Harry over breakfast so she could 'get to know' Peter's 'superhero friend'. Harry had received the text on Friday afternoon while he was in New York looking for a suitable location for relocating Grimmauld Place (as he'd decided to keep calling the Black residence) since his mobile plan was unfortunately basic and didn't come with international roaming.

The door was yanked abruptly open and the space filled with a suspiciously perky Peter Parker. Harry was hit with the sinking realisation he was probably a morning person. It figures that someone so sweet and innocent looking would be hiding a core of unspeakable evil.

“Harry! You're here.” The demon in disguise showed his true colours as he smiled bright like the sun. The _evil_ sun who's piercing rays attacked the eyes of poor innocent victims who'd spent most of the night finishing calculations for intercontinental house relocation.

“Nngh coffee.” Harry slurred, holding up the cups in an attempt to ward off the presence with the objects of worship.

“Oh thanks.” The presence took two of the offerings leaving Harry free to consume the remaining third and thus regain the power of multi-word sentences, the fool.

“Come on, I don't want to leave May watching the pancakes for too long.”

Harry shuffled into the apartment finishing off the last of his coffee. It had probably been a mistake to get hooked on the stuff, but it was difficult to find decent tea this side of the pond. Sadly, intercontinental apparition was too inconvenient to bother with every time he wanted a decent cuppa.

“Hi, you must be Harry. Peter's been talking about you constantly.”

Harry blinked sleepily. There was a person. A person who wasn't Peter. He should probably greet said person.

“'Lo not Peter.” There, he could be courteous.

Not Peter laughed.

“I'll make you another coffee. Instant only I'm afraid.”

By the time Not Pet- Peter's aunt came back with more coffee, the first was beginning to take effect.

“Sorry.” He said taking the coffee from Peter's aunt. “I er, didn't really sleep last night. Got sidetracked finishing a project instead. It's nice to meet you Mrs Parker.”

It didn't help that his house was still in Hong Kong where daytime hours were almost the opposite of New York. Thankfully Peter's aunt seemed more amused than offended.

“It's fine, and please, call me May. If I wanted perfect coherency I wouldn't have invited a teenager over at breakfast time.”

Harry had to wonder where she got her realistic expectations from with only her demon spawn of a nephew as an example.

She laughed again, seemingly reading his thoughts.

“Before getting his powers Peter was as much of a zombie as any teenager in the mornings.”

Harry supposed that meant he'd have to forgive Peter. It wasn't really fair to hold it against him when he had evil thrust upon him.

Just then Peter came in from the kitchen, a plate stacked high with pancakes in his hands. He set it down on the table already covered with toppings and plates.

“Breakfast.” He chirped.

They all got themselves seated and dished up the first round of pancakes, Harry going for the classic lemon juice and sugar.

“ So, Harry.” May began once they were sorted. “Peter tells me you'll be going to high school while you're here. Do you know where you're going yet?”

Harry didn't have a clue.

“No not yet. Stark's organising it for me, but I'm taking placement tests today to see how I match up with an American education. I might know more after that.”

May's eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of Stark. Harry got the distinct impression May wasn't his number one fan.

“That's nice of him, you can't get far without a good education these days. It's good you'll have that support if it takes you longer than you expect to get home.”

Harry was trying not to think about that, but she had a point.

“I suppose. At least I'm covered financially with the price of gold here.” And hadn't that been a shock.

“What's gold got to do with it?” Peter took a break from inhaling his food, albeit politely, to ask.

“Er, it's the main currency in my community back home. Well, gold, silver, and bronze. There were... extenuating circumstance that meant I had to store my money at home rather than in a bank vault” Otherwise known as breaking out of said bank on the back of a dragon and nearly starting a war with the goblins. “So it came with me and I've sold off a few coins to gold traders to keep me in cash as I've needed it.” Probably best not to mention how much gold he actually had with him considering it went for around twelve hundred per ounce here.

"Aah, maybe you should talk to Mr Stark about that.” Peter sounded concerned. “If you're selling a lot of gold it might draw attention, especially if they're weird coins. He might have a better way to sell them safely.”

Well that was concerning. Considering the exchange rate back home was about five pounds a galleon Harry wasn't used to thinking of gold being _that_ valuable.

The rest of breakfast continued with May gently but deliberately questioning Harry about his future plans while Harry scrambled to come up with answers more substantial than 'I don't know' or 'find a way home'. He _was_ socially aware enough to know that telling a potential friends family you had no intention of making something of yourself was a great way to get them offside.

Thankfully, while he felt he could have done better, by the time Happy pulled up outside May hadn't told him to stay away from her nephew. He must have scraped through.

They arrived at the Avenger's compound just after nine thirty and met Stark in the labs that were part of the private Avenger's section of the compound. Other than Stark, only Colonel Rhodes and The Vision had unlimited access so it was fairly secure.

Stark barely greeted them before getting started.

“I'd originally planned on you arriving in costume so your new identity could be kept separate from your Peregrine one but I scrapped that after getting an alert that someone saw Underoos' face while in-costume on Thursday... Thanks for the near heart attack by the way.” Stark shot Peter a sardonic look causing him to look away sheepishly.

“It's not the end of the world but we're going to have to get your story straightened out today, before anyone gets curious.”

Harry was under the impression that he was here for this already, what with the placement tests he was supposed to take.

“What exactly do you need from me then?” Stark had seemed to have it all in hand when they were back at the tower.

“I want your input.” Stark began unhelpfully. Was he stalling? “Look, we didn't have time to go over this on Thursday, but with your miraculous two year de-aging we need to sort out your guardianship issues. On top of that, now that Underoos has let the Spider out of the bag, I'm guessing you two are going to be meeting up outside of costume.” He phrased it like a question but continued before either boy could respond.

“And if I'm vouching for you to the Accords panel, you're _going_ to be coming to these Saturday training sessions. Aside from the hit to my reputation, I don't need any _more_ deaths on my conscience because you had no idea how to de-escalate a robbery.”

Harry had to wonder whether Stark meant a civilian death or Harry's own... Maybe both. Whatever the case, Harry didn't want to be responsible for anyone dying any more than Stark did. Going along to some training sessions was a small price to pay.

“But that's going to make it easy for even the brainless politicians with the Accords to figure you out. Two sixteen year old kids both associated with me while I'm mentoring two under-age superheroes... Yeah, not exactly inconspicuous. You've only really got two options for preventing that and you're probably not going to like either of them.”

Harry definitely wasn't imagining Stark's hesitation here.

“The easiest fix would be for the two of you to avoid each other out of costume and for Houdini to come for training on different days and in-costume so no one connects either side of you to 'my intern Peter'.”

Stark was right. Harry didn't find this option appealing at all, Peter hadn't commented yet but the frown he was sporting said he wasn't too happy with it either. Harry tried to ignore the warm glow this sparked in his chest.

“What's the other option?” Better to have all the information before he worked himself up.

“Yeah, that one's a bit more complicated...” There was that hesitation again. Surely it wasn't _that_ bad or Stark wouldn't suggest it. Harry didn't think Stark was the kind of person who humoured bad ideas when he had a choice.

“Look, regardless of what we decide on there's always the risk someone goes digging for secrets and strikes it lucky and the best way to prevent that is to give them something to find. Usually once they've 'found what you're hiding' they're satisfied with getting one over you and don't think to look any deeper.”

That made sense to Harry but judging from the tension Stark was trying to hide, the other shoe was getting ready to drop.

“If we're playing it that way then we don't need to hide that you know each other, actually it's better if we don't. If we make it obvious that you're both Spider-man and Peregrine then it will seem _too_ obvious. I'd never be that sloppy and they know it.”

“Wait.” Peter interrupted. “If they won't believe it then what's the problem. Why do we need to do anything else.”

Harry would like to know the answer to that himself.

“It's only too obvious so long as there's a ready explanation for everything else. How you two know each other, why _Harry_ has a connection to me. We could claim he's an intern as well but honestly it's hard enough to believe I'd take on one teenage intern let alone two. At least Peter actually _is_ an intern and anyone who takes a look at his work can see why. Still, it might be useful as a paper thin first layer of deception so long as we have something juicy ready to be found when someone breaks through it.”

Harry had quite liked the plan until he heard that word. _Juicy_ was a word for reporters and scandals.

“It'll help reinforce the idea that Peter is just an intern as well. After all, why bother making the intern-ship look as real as it is for Peter only to do a hack job with Harry. I wouldn't unless I was trying to make a fake intern-ship look similar to a real one to cover something else up. It'll make your guardianship issue simpler as well. We'd still try to keep it all quiet but if anyone asks I can claim that my 'intern' needed a change in guardianship for whatever reason we go with and being the _generous_ and _Paternal_ mentor that I am I offered to make you my ward.”

Harry could see how this would all tie together. It would look like Peter and Harry had met through Stark and that Stark had used Peter's _perfectly normal_ intern-ship as the basis for a cover for why Harry was involved with Stark. The only question was...

“And what _juicy_ piece of information is all of this supposed to be a cover for?”

Stark was trying to play it cool by staring at his holographic plans like they held the secrets of the universe, but he was flicking through them rapidly with sharp, jerky movements belying his anxiety.

“Well... I'd need to make the guardianship records look like they'd been doctored and getting all the right officials to back it up will be a bitch, bu-”

“Holy shit!” Peter cut him off sounding like he'd had an epiphany. “You want to make it look like he's your secret illegitimate kid.” He blurted with the subtlety of a rhino.

The dead silence that followed confirmed Peter's guess.

“Oh my god, people would believe it too. Before Harry told us where he'd come from I totally thought he was going to say he was your kid.”

Which, what? Where the bloody hell did that come from?

When Peter jumped into a babbled explanation he figured he must have said that out loud.

“I mean with the hair, and the nose, and um... Sorry Mr Stark, but it's kinda not hard to believe you might have had a kid accidentally back before you were Iron Man.”

Stark looked a little shell-shocked but Harry probably wasn't much better.

“Ok then... I was thinking we'd have to make do with the right clothes and... and a carefully chosen haircut, but it looks like it'll be easier than I thought.” Stark sounded almost disbelieving.

Harry knew how he felt but for a different reason. He'd thought these plans were going a little overboard from the beginning but had let Stark convince him it was necessary. This was taking it to another level though. Why would Stark go to _this_ much trouble when Harry was going to be going home eventually.

“What about when I go back home? Isn't it going to be a little fishy that your supposed kid just up and disappears?”

A complicated expression flashed over Stark's face briefly. He had his usually arrogant smirk back up by the time he responded.

“Well, if you're not here any more I'll be able to spin the story however I want to without it screwing you over. Speaking of, I didn't want to get your hopes up before I made sure I had my facts straight but I _may_ have known more about the fighting going on when you arrived in Hong Kong than I let on."

That _would_ help explain why Stark had believed him so easily. It's also probably why Stark had quizzed him for details, he was checking to see if they matched up and if Harry was telling the truth.

“I've got a couple of leads for you to follow up, one's even in Manhattan, not that far from Stark Tower. There were a couple of bombings in New York and London just before the mess in Hong Kong started. Funny thing is, the buildings that were attacked didn't exist before they were hit and they disappeared again the day after.”

Harry couldn't believe it. All this time searching and in just two days Stark turns up a viable lead. It was almost enough for Harry to forget what they'd been talking about. Which... now that he thought about it, was probably Stark's intention. He was trying to distract Harry from the fact he was making long term plans for Harry's future here, almost like... Like he thought Harry wasn't going to find a way home.

Harry would just have to prove him wrong. He had some direction for his search now and what did Stark know about magic anyway. Still despite his efforts being misguided, what he was doing to make sure Harry was set up here was _well_ beyond any possible obligation. Harry would prefer not to throw that back in his face, especially if it would result in an argument about his chances of getting home.

“Thank, you, that's amazing. Do you know approximately where the buildings were when the appeared? If they're hidden with magic I might be able to find them.”

“Yeah kid, I'll make sure you get all my data before you go this afternoon.” Stark relaxed, apparently relieved Harry was playing along.

“Ok, thank you again. Though I suppose we still need to sort out this conspiracy you've concocted.” He could practically see the metaphorical armour closing around Stark at his words, but he had to at least make one more attempt...

“Look Stark, I do appreciate what you're offering here but it seems like it's going to cause you an awful lot of trouble. Won't this get out to the press?”

Stark looked completely unruffled by the idea, damn him.

“If it's Accords business, which the identity of your superhero persona would definitely be, then they're not going to go the the media about it. Sure, they'll use the information for blackmail, coercion, maybe even kidnapping if they think they can get away with it, but going to the media would be career suicide, it's too public for them to cover up.”

Harry would have thought Stark was exaggerating if not for his own experiences with the Ministry back home. Appearances were always more important that substance with politicians.

“But me having an illegitimate kid- god that sounds weird - that wouldn't be covered by the same secrecy. It wouldn't be as interesting to most of them either, but you can practically guarantee there'd eventually be _someone_ who'd leak it. We'd deny it of course but despite a lack of evidence, denying anything to the press can be almost as good as confirming it.”

Which was about what Harry expected. Still it didn't look like Stark was backing down and Harry didn't think he'd been dishonest about the consequences of someone finding out who Peregrine was. If nothing else Harry didn't want to put Peter at risk just for associating with him.

“I suppose I don't really have much of a choice.” Harry grudgingly conceded. He seemed to do that a lot around Stark

“You've always got a choice kid, you just don't always have good ones.” Stark voice came out slightly haunted as if remembering a time when _he_ had no good options to choose from.

Well, if Harry was going to concede defeat he could at least be gracious about it.

“Thank you then. I'm aware it would have been easier for you to make me keep my distance from Peter.” And though Harry wasn't quite ready to confront the reasons, the idea of being essentially banned from contact with Peter was surprisingly painful.

Stark laughed.

“Yeah, no. Like that would have worked. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not stupid.”

Looking at the stubborn expression gracing Peter's face, Harry kind of had to agree. Harry, of course, would have followed such a ban with all the rule abiding obedience he was known for...

“Anyway, you.” Stark pointed at Harry. “Need to fill out your tests so I can finish 'concocting my conspiracy', and it's about time Underoos stopped slacking off and did some training.”

“Hey! Mr Stark, that's not fair. I was uh... learning to create a cover story. That's important superhero know how, you know.”

“Uh huh.” Stark wasn't buying it. It probably would have helped if Peter hadn't snorted at the face Stark was making.

“Wait a second.” Harry called before they could walk off. He grabbed the magical theory books out of his satchel and brought them over to the desk beside Stark.

“I er, well since you're doing so much for me I thought you might appreciate a few books on magic. There's no spells, it's all theory but I figured you'd be more interested in _why_ it works anyway” Stark was staring at him a little blankly so he continued. “Uh, you can ask me questions about it later?”

That seemed to snap Stark out of whatever his little episode was.

“You're serious.” He half-asked half-stated. “Huh, well that's a first. Whenever I asked Thor he'd just tell me that on Asguard, magic and science were the same, and refused to explain further.”

Harry _really_ hoped that didn't mean he was pissing off a realm full of gods by doing this. Not that it would stop him.

“Just bear in mind these books are from back home. Some things might work a little differently here.” Harry figured Stark was smart enough to work that out for himself but it didn't hurt to warn him.

“Such as.” Stark raised an eyebrow.

Well, there was one obvious thing.

“The uh, first thing I noticed when I got here was the free magic, sorry, you call it dark energy-”

“Wait, wait, wait. Wait. You're telling me the answer to dark energy, a problem that's been baffling scientists for close to two decades, is _magic_?”

“Uh, yes? Kind of.” It was a little more complicated than that.

“Kind of.” Stark repeated dubiously. “Uh huh. Continue.”

Easier said... Harry was feeling a little self-conscious now.

“The uh, 'dark energy' is basically spillover... or maybe overlap, from a nearby, um, dimension I guess. Maybe it's more accurate to say that there's more dimensions than the three spatial dimensions and dark energy exists slightly along one of those other dimensions. Also dark matter but that's not as important fo-”

“No, stop. Again. Are you talking about parallel universes?” Stark looked kind of frazzled.

“No. Uh, kind of. Think of parallel universes as being in _another_ direction, dimension, whatever. They're also a lot further away. Far enough that they don't have an effect on this universe.” He wasn't sure how to explain it better than that. Didn't Stark know he hadn't even gone to his last year at Hogwarts... Actually no, he didn't.

“Uh, I should probably point out that I only know this stuff at the level of someone who dropped out before the last year of the wizarding equivalent of high school. That's why I brought the books, they go into more detail. Uh also, before I forget, they're charmed copies so they'll only last a few days. You'll need to photocopy them or something if you want permanent copies.”

“You're a high school drop-out.” Stark's voice was completely deadpan.

“I suppose, technically.” Harry wasn't exactly proud of it but he didn't have a lot of choice. Stark's expression was making him self-conscious. “It wasn't completely my fault, there was a war on.”

That wiped the deadpan stare off Stark's face but the tired look that replaced it was probably worse.

“A war. Ok, we'll come back to that later.” He took a deep breath as if composing himself. “Right, just give me what you know so I don't go making the wrong assumptions when I read these.” He patted the pile of theory books.

Right, he could do that.

“Ok um, like I said, dark energy exists close to our three dimensional space but slightly er, removed. Oh! Ok so imagine you didn't have the technology to detect anything directly if it wasn't on Earth. Everything in space would still effect Earth the same as it does, but you couldn't see any of it directly.” Harry hoped this was making sense. “You'd still be able to see effects on Earth from, say, the moon's gravity, like the tidal shifts and the variance it causes in Earth's orbit, so you'd know the moon was there. You just wouldn't be able to detect it directly. That's basically how dark energy works. It's there, and it has an effect on our three dimensional space, you just can't detect it directly because you don't have the technology to 'see' through that dimension.” If Stark wasn't getting this he could read it from the damn books. “Anyway, it seems that in this universe dark energy is just _slightly_ closer along that dimension than it is back home. The energy 'spillover' is a lot higher. It was almost suffocating when I first got here.”

Stark seemed to be coping well until that last sentence.

“You. Can detect. Dark. Energy.”

Why did Stark have to be so difficult about this. Peter was already happily reading the books that explained this all much better than Harry could. Stark could read them too.

“Well, yes” Wizards could detect plenty of things that didn't quite line up with three dimensional space.

“You know what, fine. Wizards can detect dark energy and they use it to do magic.”

Er...

“Not... exactly.” Oh Merlin.

“You don't use dark energy to do magic?” Stark let out a tired sigh.

“We don't use dark energy directly when casting spells.” Harry corrected. Although... “Having said that I wouldn't be surprised if you could practically finger-paint with it considering how strong it is in this universe. We usually only use it to power things like wards which can be charged slowly. The wards on my house that sent me here took hundreds of years to charge to what they were and they were almost completely depleted because of the trip.” Actually it was a little scary to consider they were almost back to where they were back home after only a few months here.

“So despite the stronger dark energy, your magic itself isn't actually stronger here.”

Stark was catching on but not quite there yet.

“Not how you're thinking. Wizards back home cast spells with our personal energy. Think, er... life force? Or maybe spiritual energy. It's the energy that permeates your soul and forms your consciousness.”

Stark was no longer interrupting, but considering he was slowly shaking his head with his hand over his eyes that might not be a good thing.

“Anyway, what I meant to say was that our personal energy doesn't get any stronger from being in an environment with extra dark energy. There were places back home that had high concentrations, though nothing like here.” Hogwarts in particular. “It really only has two effects on us and both are due to our bodies being capable of absorbing and converting dark energy into personal energy. Basically it allows us to 'recharge' our magic faster, and because the dark energy we absorb permeates our bodies, it makes us physically tougher and speeds up our healing. It's the main reason wizards live longer than non-wizards.”

Stark wasn't moving at all now, he was sitting at the desk with his head in his hands and just... not responding. Harry was beginning to get worried.

“Er, Stark?” He prompted.

“Go do your test. I'll read the books.” Stark's voice came out muffled because of his hands. He sounded pained.

Harry opened his mouth to ask if Stark was alright but was interrupted before he could get a word out.

“Go on, shoo. I need to rebuild my shattered world-view.”

Well, in that case, Harry would come back and check on Stark later. Hopefully Peter was handling it better.


	8. Chapter 7

 Peter was running late Friday morning so didn't get a chance to talk with Ned until lunch. This didn't stop Ned from attempting to grill him for details whenever there was a second to spare though, and by the time they were heading for the cafeteria he could barely contain himself.

“So...” Ned prompted when they were finally sitting down.

Peter took the opportunity to needle Ned a little by pasting on a confused expression. This caused Ned to let out a sound reminiscent of a boiling kettle.

“The deets dude. Spill.” He demanded.

Peter took a deliberately large bite of his lunch to give him some time. Usually he was happy to tell Ned everything about his Spider-man activities but Harry had trusted Peter with a lot and he didn't know how much he was allowed to share.

“So, um, Peregrine's coming over to my place Saturday morning before we go to the compound.” He blurted when he ran out of stalling time.

“Wait, what? Dude, does he know who you are? Oh my god, how did he find out? Does Tony Stark know?”

Good job Peter.

“I maybe, sorta... told him? But he totally told me and Mr Stark first. Who he is I mean. And some other stuff. But I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say.”

This seemed to have Ned flipping back to excitement.

"Dude! Peregrine told you who he is? Is he someone you already knew? Do _I_ know him? Can I come meet him tomorrow?”

“Who's Peregrine?” MJ's voice made the boys flinch, not having noticed her down the bench.

“MJ.” Peter blurts before realising he has no idea what to say.

“No, that's me... You guys suck at keeping secrets.”

Peter never could figure out how much MJ knew, it was incredibly unsettling... Which was probably why she never made it clear. At least it wasn't Flash or he'd have yet another thing to hold over Peter's head forever. The constant denial of his Stark intern-ship was bad enough, especially now that it was real.

“Whatever losers, don't miss practice today.” She stood to leave.

Peter was fairly sure that comment wasn't for Ned. Peter had been on the receiving end of similar comments every day of practise since MJ took over captaincy of the team.

MJ paused, narrowing her eyes at Peter.

“ _Yes_ Peter, that means you.” She walked off.

“Do you ever wonder if she can read your mind?” Peter asked Ned once he was sure MJ was out of hearing range.

“Who knows dude.” Ned dismissed Peter's question for one of his own. “So, can I come tomorrow?”

As much as Peter would like to have his friends met- did Harry count as a friend yet?- he didn't want to spring it on Harry out of nowhere.

“I don't know Ned. I think maybe I should ask him first. May told me to invite him to breakfast but he hasn't responded yet so I think he's out of service, or maybe he just has his phone turned off. I'll ask him when he responds.”

This seemed to placate Ned for the moment and Peter spent the rest of lunch filling Ned in on how the joint patrol went.

Peter kept checking his phone obsessively throughout the day but it wasn't until half-way through decathlon practise that his phone buzzed with a text from Harry, confirming he'd attend breakfast. By the time practise was over and Peter was able to respond he must have been out of service again since he didn't respond to any messages Peter sent.

He told Ned, who was disappointed about not getting to come the next day. He then made Peter promise to ask Peregrine when he next saw him if Ned could meet him another time, even if it was in costume. Peter was happy to do so since it was a decent excuse to spend more time with Harry.

He was heading directly home today since he'd be going out for a patrol later that night. He liked to cover as large a range of times as possible, but his patrol hours had been considerably reduced since May found out about him being Spider-man. One of her conditions for him continuing was that it wouldn't affect his education, and Mr Stark had agreed with her adding that if he wanted to keep the public side of the intern-ship he needed to keep his grades up to show he deserved it.

May was already home when Peter arrived but she was finishing up some work in the living room.

“Hey May.” He called as he walked past the living room, dropping his backpack by the dining table.

“How was school today?” She called back her standard reply.

He moved through the kitchen to get some water.

“Not bad, I got a reply from Harry while I was in decathlon practice. He said he'll be here for breakfast tomorrow.” And now he just had to find a way to stop May from cooking. He didn't want to scare Harry off completely.

“Good. I don't like not knowing anything about your friends, especially ones you meet out of school.”

Peter would like to know who these other friends _were_. Also, why did going to his school give potential friends any extra credit. Surely she'd change her mind if she met Flash.

“Don't worry May, you'll like him, even Mr Stark likes him and he was trying really hard to be suspicious. It was only like, five minutes before he was working on getting Harry set up with a new identity.” Which had actually been pretty funny looking back.

He moved round the corner so he could see May in the living room.

“I'm sure I will, you certainly seem to like him a lot.” She shot him an amused smirk, which was _completely_ unfair. It wasn't Peter's fault that Harry was the only other superhero he'd met his own age, of course he was going to want to get to know him. That he was also ridiculously attractive was totally irrelevant.

“I'm not sure Stark's opinion counts for anything though.”

Peter winced.

May hadn't quite got past being angry at Mr Stark for 'encouraging and enabling' Peter in being Spider-man. Peter had tried to tell her he'd started long before he met Mr Stark and that, if anything, Mr Stark had made him safer with the new suit and the training he was organising, but May wasn't having it. At least she wasn't threatening to have him charged with kidnapping for the Germany thing any more.

“Did I tell you Mr Stark's organising for Harry to go to high school?” Every bit of positive press about Mr Stark helped when it came to May.

“Once or twice.” She said, lips twitching.

Peter didn't notice.

“It would be amazing if Mr Stark could get him into Midtown. I mean, I know he hasn't gone to regular school for ages, but he seems pretty smart. Did I tell you he's going to tell me more about how his magic works tomorrow?”

He was really looking forward to that. He'd bet Mr Stark would want to join in too.

“Mhmm should be interesting.” May agreed distractedly.

Peter went back to the kitchen figuring he should let May finish her work and wanting to check they had the ingredients he wanted.

“Hey May. Can I make pancakes for breakfast tomorrow?” He called out, forgetting he was going to let her work in peace.

She didn't seem to mind though, leaving her work behind to talk to him in the kitchen.

“If you like... Why? Showing off you cooking skills for Harry?” She teased.

Peter groaned.

“May, come on, don't be like that. He's just... really nice. It would be cool if he wanted to hang out with um, you know, me. Peter, not just Spider-man.”

That was probably too much to hope for. Before Spider-man, it had been made fairly obvious to Peter that he didn't really show on most people's radars. On top of that, Harry had made it perfectly clear he was looking for a way to get back home. He probably wasn't looking to make friends here.

“Oh Peter.” She wrapped him in a hug. “Do you really think he'd be coming tomorrow if he didn't want to get to know you?”

Peter knew she had a point, but when you're suddenly interesting to people _after_ getting superpowers it kind of makes you wonder if anyone cares who you are underneath that.

“Thanks May.” It was times like this he realised how lucky he was to have an aunt who cared about him so much.

He spent the rest of the evening till his patrol talking to May about Harry. What Peter knew about his abilities, theories on how his magic worked, plans for getting him and Ned to meet. There was a lot to talk about.

Patrol was fairly busy that night with Peter intervening in three attempted muggings. The first two went according to plan leaving the muggers tied up for collection by the police. Unfortunately the third had the elderly lady with poor eyesight he was rescuing thinking _he_ was trying to mug her. This resulted in her attempting to beat him with her handbag when he tried to check she wasn't hurt. Still, it was a productive night and helped him sleep peacefully knowing he was using his powers to make people's lives better.

As a result of his restful sleep, Peter was particularly chirpy the next morning, which had nothing at all to do with how he was seeing Harry again so soon. He started on the pancakes, fending off May's 'help' with the cooking by letting her set the table with a ridiculous number of toppings. He did however let her mind the cooking briefly when the doorbell rang so he could be the one to let Harry in.

On opening the door, Peter found Harry looking particularly rumpled like he hadn't quite woken up yet. Combined with his sleepy grumpiness it was surprisingly adorable, especially when he overheard Harry calling May 'Not Peter' to her face. Sadly it wasn't to last, but Peter could tell his aunt had already been won over by Harry's awkward charm, so it could have been worse.

Breakfast went well, though May dominated most of Harry's time by grilling him on his prospects like she though he was Peter's date. It was embarrassing enough without getting dragged into it, so Peter enjoyed his pancakes while trying not to look too interested in Harry's answers.

He was saved by his phone buzzing with a text from Happy, announcing his arrival out the front. May still managed to slip in some last minute teasing by shooting Peter an exaggerated thumbs up and wink behind Harry's back.

 

* * *

 

The placement exam took over four hours to complete but would have been longer without Friday. Instead of putting together a written test, Friday had compiled a list of topics covering knowledge essential for someone entering their junior year of high school. She then proceeded to verbally quiz Harry allowing her to dynamically change the questions as she learned which topics Harry had knowledge in so that the process was as efficient as possible. Even so, Harry was mentally wrung out by the time he finished.

Stark had apparently recovered from his mini breakdown by then and was busy devouring the magical theory books with Peter. He did however manage to tear himself away when Friday announced Harry's test was complete, moving over to a holographic display to check the results.

“Let's see... Writing and critical reading are fine except for British spelling, American literature is... not so good _,_ you can say you planned to take that this year. Geography is fine, World History – poor, American History – bad, though again you can take it this year, Foreign Language – equivalent of one year of French, that's terrible.” Harry was just surprised the little amount of French he picked up from Fleur was worth anything. “Ah, the important ones. Chemistry – spotty in places, advanced in others, nothing some self-study won't fix, Biology – good, Physics – well into college level in some areas, nice. Needs remedial tutoring on the scientific method. I'll sort something for that on your training days. Algebra, Trig, Geometry, Calc, all fine, but you need to learn to use a calculator to get your speed up. Anything to do with computers is better left unspoken. Hmm, recommendations for astronomy, creative writing, _Latin_ , and zoology as electives on your transcripts. Well that'll help round things out... Ok, I can work with this.”

Harry couldn't help but be surprised by Stark's conclusion. It sounded to him like he was missing more knowledge than not.

“Hey Mr Stark, do you think a STEM school would work better for Harry? I mean, he's done pretty well with the sciences and maths, plus it would mean he didn't have to focus so much on other subjects he doesn't have much background in.”

Stark shot Peter a knowing look having apparently read more from Peter's input that Harry.

“Maybe, I'll see what I can do. He's going to need some practice with lab procedures and the more hands-on learning style if we go that route.”

Harry figured Stark was referring more to that 'scientific method' than lab _techniques_ as he had a decent grounding in those from potions class.

“Oh, I can do that Mr Stark. If we can use the lab I could even make up some practise experiments.”

Harry was beginning to get just slightly annoyed they were planning this out in front of him without asking for his input.

“Uh huh, and I'm sure you'd be happy to teach Dorothy here _all about_ hands-on learning. As much as I support your enthusiasm, I'm going to have to insist on a chaperone if you're in my lab. There's too much dangerous equipment there if you get... distracted.”

From the way Peter was blushing and spluttering Harry figured he must have missed something. It didn't seem _that_ unreasonable for Stark to want them to be supervised in his personal lab. Honestly Harry was shocked Stark considered allowing him in there in the first place.

“Fine, you know what. Catch him up on everything he's behind on by the end of the school year and I'll make sure he gets into Midtown. That includes _at least_ basic IT skills on top of filling in the rest of his knowledge gaps.”

Harry _was_ still irritated they were planning this out _for_ him but was mollified slightly by the realisation Peter was trying to get Harry into his own school. It was sweet of him, regardless of how intimidating Harry found the idea of going to a school with the kind of standards it must have if someone as smart as Peter attended.

“Yeah, yeah.” Stark cut off Peter's enthusiastic thanks. “I wasn't kidding about the chaperoning. I don't have much spare time so you'll have make use of tower's main labs if you want more lab tutoring time than a couple of hours a week. It's about time you had your own space there anyway... It'll let the R&D staff get to know you as my intern.” Stark directed the last at Peter.

“Oh my god! Really? Do we get out own security badges? Can I show Ned the labs? What about-”

“I'll let Happy know he needs to get badges for you.” Stark cut Peter off again. “Ted doesn't have clearance for the main labs, but if you come back up here next Saturday to make up today's missed training I'll see what I can do about organising a tour... _Actually_ it wouldn't hurt you to take the tour as well, you've only really seen the private floors.”

Peter's excitement wasn't dimmed. He apparently didn't see _extra_ training with Stark as a negative.

Stark turned his attention to Harry

“Ok, we're out of time for today but we have to cover one more thing. If Peregrine's going to be associated with Iron Man publicly you're going to need to look the part. You're not as bad off as Underoos was before his upgrade but there's still _plenty_ of room for improvement.”

Harry didn't bother arguing. He was beginning to learn it was easier to just go with the flow when Stark got like this.

“The shadow monster look has to go, maybe a half mask or a helmet instead... I'll admit the coat and boots aren't terrible. What are they made of, snakeskin?”

Harry was fairly sure that was meant to be rhetorical but figured he should set the record straight before Stark decided to replace them for practicality.

“No, dragon skin.”

This actually managed to derail Stark.

“Dragon.” Stark spoke as if tasting the word. “You're really from Middle-Earth aren't you. What else have you got there? Elves? Goblins? Dwarves?”

Harry _had_ read Tolkien's work since arriving here so he at least knew what Stark war referring to even if he couldn't decide how to answer. The problem was, while the wizarding world _did_ have all of those beings they were nothing like their fictional counterparts... Except maybe goblins, viscous little buggers.

“Er... I don't come from Middle-Earth.” Deflect.

Stark leveled Harry with a measuring look.

“That wasn't a no to the magical menagerie.”

Bollocks.

His hesitation cost him when Stark took his silence as confirmation.

“I should have known... Peregrine, or Pippin for _short._ You're _obviously_ a hobbit.”

Peter, who'd been silent until now let out an undignified snort. The prat.

“Stones and glass houses Stark.” Harry ground out in irritation. Like Stark had any room to make short jokes.

“Fine, fine, don't get your feathers ruffled, we still need to fit you with an upgrade.

Harry just hoped Stark wasn't planning on making him some technological monstrosity like Peter's suit, he wouldn't have a clue what to do with it.

“Look, I don't need a fancy costume. I've got spells for just about anything I could need and I'm not even sure the electronics won't malfunction if I'm wearing them constantly.”

Except, the levels of free magic here were insanely high compared to back home, and nothing was going haywire.

“Stark-tech doesn't _malfunction_.” Stark huffed, offended.

Ah damn, not what he'd meant.

“No that's- er. What I meant was, being exposed to magic changes the way certain things behave, like electrons and high-energy radiation. I think _here_ technology must have developed differently so that it... adapted I suppose, for a magic rich environment. Back home I'm used to magic making technology go bananas.”

“So... if the magic levels are already high here, it shouldn't be a problem, right?” Peter chimed in.

Well, probably.

“Fine, just... try not to go overboard?” Harry got the feeling he'd have better luck asking a fish not to swim.

Peter, who looked like he'd been holding back questions the whole discussion, finally reached his bursting point.

“Does dragon skin do anything special, or is it just fancy leather?” He rushed out before snapping his mouth shut.

He'd been eyeing the jacket like it was an intriguing puzzle he wanted to solve, which was better than Stark who looked like he was barely holding himself from running off with it for analysis. Harry would probably let them borrow some old dragon hide gloves later, so long as no one got the bright idea of Harry wearing them while patrolling. Wearing magic resistant gloves when you cast magic through your hands was... sub-optimal.

“It's almost impossible to damage through physical force, especially here where the free magic is so strong. It's also pretty good at blocking magic since it absorbs it, but there's ways of getting around that. It doesn't protect very well against blunt force either, it's too flexible.” That made it comfortable though.

“Right, so you'll need an under-suit.” Stark declared. “Something protective but not so bulky it limits your mobility.”

That didn't sound too bad. A little extra protection could be useful if Harry was a bit slow with his shielding spells. There were a lot more people in America with guns than he was used to.

“You should make it look like the Jedi armour from The Clone Wars. His jacket's basically a robe and he _is_ a wizard from a galaxy far far away.”

Peter seemed to think this was hilarious, but Harry had no idea what he was talking about. It must have shown because both Peter and Stark were looking at him with growing disbelief.

“You don't know what Star Wars is do you?” Peter spoke slowly as if Harry was suffering from some great tragedy and needed to be treated delicately. Even Stark was looking at Harry pityingly.

“It's... some kind of video game?” Harry took a stab in the dark.

Peter made a pained noise as if Harry's answer physically hurt him.

“We need to fix this.” He declared. “You're coming over to my place tomorrow and we're watching all six original movies-”

“All _three_ original movies” Stark argued, cutting Peter off. “And the three piece of crap prequels if you _have_ to.”

Peter ignored this acting like Stark hadn't spoken.

“Do you mind if my friend Ned comes? Only he really wants to meet you and he's a huge Star Wars fan. He knows I'm Spider-man and he knows _I_ know who you are but he doesn't know anything else cause I didn't know how much you'd want him to know, you know?”

Harry took a moment to untangle that sentence. If Peter's friend already knows about him being Spider-man and that Peter knows Peregrine's identity out of costume then it would be fairly obvious who Harry was if they met through Peter.

Harry trusted Peter but he didn't know anything about this guy Ned or whether he could keep a secret. Though the fact that Peter's face wasn't plastered on the news as Spider-man gave him some credit. He turned to Stark to see what he thought.

Stark looked dubious, which wasn't promising, but seeing he had Harry's attention he spoke his thoughts.

“It's probably fine but the fake background _has_ to be need to know. I wouldn't even have let Peter tell his improbably attractive aunt if keeping her informed wasn't a condition for him keeping the suit. You can tell Fred the intern cover and hint that it's not the full truth. He'll come to his own conclusions without you really having to lie to him.”

That was fair enough. There wasn't much point in Harry having a cover if everyone knew it was fake.

Stark shooed them out after giving Harry a Stark-tablet containing the data he had on the mysterious bombings, and making sure they were both coming back the next Saturday.

They spent the ride back to Peter's first by confirming the movie marathon on Sunday then with Peter telling Harry more about his friend Ned. The stories reminded Harry somewhat of his friendship with Ron, back in school before the war got serious.

They'd never completely recovered their friendship after the war. Harry couldn't completely forgive Ron for abandoning him and Hermione when they needed him during the war, even if he did come back, and Ron found Harry's avoidance after the war grating since he figured they deserved the attention after all they'd done. They'd been well on their way to drifting apart even before Harry had gone and trapped himself in another universe.

The door opening dragged Harry back to the present and he followed Peter out of the car. He walked Peter up to the building entrance but stopped there. As much as he liked spending time with Peter he had two new leads to check out from Stark and didn't have the patience to wait any longer.

“Well.” Harry began, then paused. He wasn't sure what was an appropriate goodbye here.

“I'll see you tomorrow?” Peter saved them from the awkward silence.

“Right, of course.” Harry replied.

The silence continued.

“I'll just be going then. See you later.” Harry finally managed, turning to walk away so he could apparate.

Peter let out one final 'bye' as Harry started walking. Harry had to force himself not to return the farewell yet again, he'd apparently picked up some sort of mental deficiency.

He turned into the first deserted alley that hid him from sight and apparated home. He wouldn't be able to start investigating the leads Stark had given him since he already had plans for Sunday, but he should have time to read over the information at least.


	9. Chapter 8

Peter was acting weird.

He'd invited Ned over for an emergency Star Wars marathon. One of his intern friends had been living under a rock his whole life and hadn't seen them yet.

Wanting to fix this travesty was understandable. In fact Ned himself was proud to be involved in erasing such a crime against humanity. What _was_ strange was how worked up Peter was getting over some guy coming over, especially when Ned hadn't even heard of him before this.

Peter had spent most of the last hour cleaning and tidying his already spotless apartment, then setting up snacks in front of the TV, before checking the time and bolting for his bedroom. He'd come out seconds later changed into his favourite pair of jeans and a nice collared shirt that was half tucked in, before ducking into the bathroom where he was currently ...primping in front of the mirror.

“So, how long has this guy been interning with Stark Industries? I thought you were the only high-school age intern there.” Ned stood in the doorway with his arms folded watching Peter carefully for any attempts at lying. There was definitely something fishy going on here.

Peter glanced at him through the mirror before shiftily turning his gaze back to his hair.

“Uh, he's Mr Stark's _other_ personal intern, not a normal Stark industries intern. He's been there for... um, a while?”

Peter's voice had squeaked at the end and he was determinedly avoiding Ned's gaze. Definitely lying.

“And you're only now mentioning him?” He gave Peter his most sceptical look.

Peter winced. He must have figured he'd been caught since he gave up the pretence turning to face Ned directly.

“Look, Ned.” He floundered a moment before his face turned resolute. “Mr Stark's counting on me to keep some of this quiet, so I can't tell you everything. It's really important. I'll tell you what I can but you've got to promise me you'll keep it to yourself.”

It hurt a bit that Peter didn't trust him enough to tell him everything, but he could sort of understand where he was coming from. When he'd first found out Peter was Spider-man he'd been more concerned about what knowing the vigilante personally would do for his reputation rather than how revealing his identity would affect Peter. He'd like to think he'd grown since then though.

“Ok dude, I swear on my LEGO Death Star.” It was the best promise he could make and Peter must have felt the same since he accepted it.

“He's _going_ to be an intern sort of like I used to be before Mr Stark made me a _real_ intern, only it's a bit more complicated.”

He gave Ned a significant look like this way supposed to mean something. It didn't. Peter's fake intern-ship had just been a cover for his Spider-man activities. That would mean this intern friend was actually a superher-

“Holy shit! Is he Peregrine? It's totally Peregrine. _Dude_. I'm going to watch Star Wars with Peregrine. Wait... Peregrine hasn't seen Star Wars? Is that proof he's an alien?”

Peter didn't get a chance to answer before there was a knock on the door.

* * *

Eyeing his empty wallet after buying movie snacks, Harry realised he'd forgotten to talk to Stark about the gold issue. Perhaps it hadn't been prudent to buy twenty different varieties of popcorn but how else was Harry supposed to ensure he got the right one? It was fairly obvious from the packaging that more butter was the preference, but that still left him choosing between options such as 'extra butter', 'triple butter', and 'blast-o-butter'. Oh well, considering he'd been exchanging galleons for local currency for months now it probably wouldn't hurt to keep it up until he could talk to Stark on Saturday.

He apparated to an alley next to Peter's building and swiftly made his way inside and up the stairs till he was once more knocking on Peter's apartment door loaded down with offerings. Thankfully he was more awake today. The information given to him by Stark hadn't taken long to read through and he'd somehow managed to get a good nights sleep.

The door opened revealing a ...stout young man who proceeded to stare at Harry gobsmacked. It was unnerving enough that Harry had to double check the door number to make sure he was at the right apartment.

“Hi, you must be Ned.” He tried, having confirmed he was in the right place.

This drew an acknowledging nod from Ned but nothing else. What exactly had Peter been telling his friend about him.

“Er, I'm Harry. Peter's friend from... work.”

The lack of response stretched into awkwardness. He was beginning to consider Peter might have overestimated his friend's willingness to meet him. Thankfully Peter's smiling face popped up over his friend's shoulder to rescue him.

“Great, you're here. I've got the original trilogy lined up first since you don't know any of the plot twists. If we have time we can watch the prequels after.”

This seemed to snap Ned out of whatever mood he was in.

“Wait, are you serious? He doesn't even know about Vader being Lu-” Peter slapped his hand over Ned's mouth looking almost horrified.

“Dude!” He exclaimed giving Ned a pointed look of reproach.

Ned's eyes widened in realisation leaving Harry feeling slightly lost. Sure, Ned had obviously nearly given away one of the plot twists Peter had been talking about but this seemed a little dramatic.

He was shuffled through the apartment into the living room. Peter took the shopping bags off him before directing him to the couch.

He settled in as the two boys attempted to add his snacks to the plentiful supply already covering the coffee table. Watching as a seemingly endless stream of bottles and packages were pulled from the small bags Harry grudgingly admitted, at least to himself, he may have gone overboard with more than just the popcorn. Still... If nothing else it was worth it for the looks on Peter and Ned's faces at how much they pulled out of the bags.

“I'm fairly sure this isn't physically possible.” Peter mumbled peering at the bag like he thought it might bite him. Good instincts for dealing with enchanted objects.

When it looked like Peter was going to run off to study the thing Harry figured he should explain.

“I... may have fiddled with it's internal dimensions slightly.”

Ned let out an awed gasp but Peter just looked incredulous.

“You warped the fabric of space-time to make your shopping easier to carry.” Harry couldn't tell if that tone was judging or impressed.

“They were charging _eight cents_ per bag.” He exclaimed on the off chance it was judging. Honestly, it had been highway robbery.

Peter snorted.

“You know, I don't think your 'intern' cover story is going to last as long as you and Mr Stark think it will. You sounded just like him.”

Ned perked up at this.

“Intern cover? Is that to explain where you are when you're out as Peregrine? Because Peter tried that before and most of the school didn't believe him. They still think he's lying about it even though it's real now.”

Peter let out an embarrassed groan and red crept up his cheeks. It was cute.

Ned didn't seem to agree as he was squinting at Peter suspiciously. His eyes widened in some sort of epiphany.

“Dude, you totally have a cru-mmph”

Peter used his spider reflexes to slap a hand over Ned's mouth again. It seemed to be a common occurrence.

“Oh my god, shut up Ned.” Peter's face had gone cherry red.

Ned's eyes widened further till Harry was worried they'd pop out of their sockets.

“Gimme a sec.” Peter muttered before dragging Ned to another room and closing the door.

As much as he was itching to, Harry refrained from eavesdropping. It was a little unusual for him to exercise such restraint but the thought of Peter's reaction to having his privacy invaded was enough to hold him back. Thankfully he didn't have to wait long before they came back out, both trying and failing to look nonchalant.

“All sorted?” He asked wryly.

Peter scratched at his neck embarrassed and apologised. It was apparently all the explanation he was getting.

“So... Like I was saying, I think you need a better cover for when you're being Peregrine.” Ned pulled the conversation back on track.

Harry and Peter shared a quick look.

“It's to give a reason in case anyone finds out he'd taking on my guardianship.” Harry said flicking his eyes back to Peter

He had a vaguely guilty expression obviously uncomfortable misleading his friend. Harry wasn't exactly happy about it himself. Ned reminded him a little of Colin Creevy with his excitability and the hint of hero worship at meeting 'Peregrine'. He used to find such things annoying but ever since Colin's death at the final battle he'd gone a bit sentimental. Still, needs must.

“What? Why would he be your guardian?” Ned asked bewildered, completely missing the potential sensitivity of the question.

“Because my previous guardians aren't here to take care of me and in his own words he's a 'generous and paternal mentor.'” Harry chose his words carefully so he didn't lie.

“But... That's just a cover...” Ned trailed off staring at Harry's hair. He almost groaned. Surely it wasn't _that_ similar to Stark's.

“Holy shit!” Never mind.

“Er Ned.” Peter cut in before Ned could let loose with the questions he was no doubt full of. “Remember what we talked about earlier?”

Harry had no idea what Peter was referring to, but it was effective. Ned deflated like a punctured tyre.

“This is what you couldn't talk about?” He asked, drawing a guilty nod from Peter.

“Ah dude, really? Let's just watch Star Wars.”

That sounded good to Harry. The conversation was turning into a metaphorical minefield.

They all grabbed something to eat from the table overflowing with snacks and Peter started the movie. He joined Harry on the couch since Ned had taken the chair already.

Harry found A New Hope's story uncomfortably reminiscent of his own life. A boy seemingly from simple origins is told he has special abilities, then learns about the Dark Lord who murdered his parents. It didn't help that while the characters themselves were nothing like them, Harry couldn't help but be reminded of his friendships with Ron and Hermione while watching Luke form bonds with Leia and Han. He had to wonder if the characters on-screen would grow apart after the fighting like Harry and his own friends had.

When he finds a way back he'll have to put more effort into reconnecting with Hermione, no matter how busy she is with her political career. He shouldn't have let his differences with Ron interfere with their friendship anyway, regardless of her being his fiancee.

He wasn't going to let himself even think about Teddy who was safe with his Grandmother. It hurt too much to acknowledge how much he was failing Remus and Tonks by not being there for Teddy. Not to mention how many of his firsts he must have missed already.

He was distracted, reminiscing about his friends through most of the second movie until he was shocked out of it by horror at the revelation of Luke's paternity. Just the though of how he would have felt if _Voldemort_ had somehow been his own father made him almost physically sick. He could perfectly understand Luke's reaction.

They continued with the third movie, munching on snacks. It probably shouldn't have surprised Harry how much of a dent three hungry teenage boys made in the pile, especially considering his and Peter's higher metabolisms.

Just as the credits were coming up for Return of the Jedi Harry's phone went off with a text message.

 **Iron Dad**  
Arranged custody hearing for Thursday.  
Meet at Tower 1/2hr to discuss. Bring costume

He felt his eye twitch at the contact name and send a message back asking Stark if he'd hacked his phone.

The reply came back almost immediately

 **Iron Dad**  
No  
Friday did

He snorted, drawing the attention of Peter and Ned.

“Is that Mr Stark?” Peter perked up.

Ned jumped out of his chair to read over Harry's shoulder.

“Dude, you call him Iron Dad?” He blurted.

At this, Peter leaned over to look as well.

“Aah no.” Harry replied. He changed the contact name to Ol' Rusty.

Peter sighed in resignation.

“We'll have to watch the prequels next Sunday. Do you think he timed his message so we'd stop after the first trilogy?”

If they were talking about anyone else Harry would say he was being paranoid. Considering it was Tony Stark, Peter was probably spot on.

“Almost definitely.” He replied. “I'd better go if I want to get there on time. I left my costume back home.”

They both gave him surprisingly effective kicked puppy looks. It almost made him tell Stark he was busy, but it was probably important. He still needed to talk to Stark about the gold issue anyway.

Before leaving he agreed to meet up with them both the same time next Sunday for the rest of the movies and arranged to meet Peter after school the next day for a tutoring session and another joint patrol. That would leave the morning to finally follow up on that lead from Stark.


	10. Chapter 9

After heading back to Hong Kong to collect his costume and shoulder bag Harry apparated back to New York near Stark Tower. It was then he realised he had no idea how he was supposed to get up to wherever Stark was.

He sent off a text to Stark asking such and was immediately sent back directions for finding the private elevator access at the rear of the lobby. It was cleverly hidden beside the row of public elevators with the outer doors blending seamlessly into the wall panelling. There were no external buttons or security panels so it would be impossible to get into without Friday's permission and cooperation.

“Good afternoon Mr Potter.” Friday's Irish lilt greeted him on entering the elevator.

“Hey Friday. Is Stark in the labs again?”

He still wasn't completely comfortable with being in a building completely under someone else's control. Though after getting to know her better during the placement tests yesterday he found he was much less concerned about Friday herself. Especially now Stark was a firm ally.

“Boss is in the penthouse. I believe he thought you'd find the setting to be more relaxed.”

Which was... considerate, he supposed. It did make him wonder if he should be concerned over whatever Stark wanted to talk about.

He left the elevator walking directly into what could conservatively be called a living room. He almost missed Stark sitting on a raised area to his right, distracted by the amazing view over the city through the floor to ceiling windows.

Stark noticing his arrival waved away a holographic interface, but not before Harry caught sight of a design of some sort of circuitry integrated though a human body.

“Junior! Good to see you. Come. Sit... Drink?”

Stark didn't wait for a response, plucking a crystal decanter of amber liquid from the table and pouring a second tumbler.

Harry eyed Stark's half-full tumbler. Surely he wasn't drinking _that_ much whiskey at three thirty in the afternoon. If that's a sign of how bad his news was Harry might just need some liquid courage of his own.

He took a seat opposite Stark idly noting the small case resting on the table.

“You mentioned a custody hearing? I thought you were going to just plant the records for guardianship in the system.” From what Harry understood of Stark's abilities, let alone Friday's, hacking into such records would be child's play for either of them.

Stark grimaced.

“Yeah... That was the plan. Then Friday took a look at the laws for me and suggested an... alternative.”

Like that didn't sound ominous as hell. Harry took a swig of his drink to brace himself and was startled by the sweet taste of iced tea. It must have shown. Stark's lips quirked as if wanting to laugh at him.

Harry impatiently motioned for him to get on with it.

“Right, so. We've almost finished establishing your background. Friday's finished with the electronic records, and I'm nearly finished fleshing it out with paid witnesses to corroborate your history if anyone goes looking. Just need some strategically placed paper records and it will be set.”

Paid witnesses. That... was a little more in depth than Harry expected.

“We had to change a couple of details from you're real history, but as long as you keep them in mind it shouldn't be a problem.”

It didn't sound _too_ bad.

“What exactly did you change?” Hopefully it wouldn't be too complicated.

“I wanted to leave some room for speculation on where your powers came from, just in case someone links your new identity to Peregrine and gets curious. You're listed as being home schooled from age eleven but a deeper look shows you stayed elsewhere during the school year. Also your 'mother' has some pretty shifty records making it look like she had a fake background. This meant she couldn't have any legitimate family links and it had to be your father's sister who took you in instead of your mother's.. Or, well, your step-father's sister.”

As he was talking Friday began using the holographic projectors to display a number digital records and fake documents that must have been created for the cover story. It appeared to be extensive.

“Otherwise it should be mostly familiar. Grew up in Surrey with your aunt, uncle and cousin. They knew 'James' wasn't your biological father and resented you for it."

Here Stark looked both angry and sympathetic. He hadn't been best pleased with the way the Dursleys had treated Harry.

“Did you manage to keep all their names the same?” Harry interjected. It would make remembering it all a lot easier.

“Yeah, more or less.” Stark seemed unperturbed by the interruption. “First names are all the same and I used your parents last names. With Lily's sketchy background she wasn't an issue. Potter's a common enough surname it wasn't hard to find records of a deceased couple to tack a couple of kids onto for James and Petunia. I couldn't find any Dursleys that would suit. Had to make do with a Vernon Jones, missing person case. Dudley Jones is cut from whole cloth.”

Harry wasn't sure quite how he felt about all this. On the one hand it sounded very thorough and would make life here much easier for him, not having to lie nearly as much as he'd thought. On the other it was rather disturbing. Both the casual way Stark had changed the story of these people's lives and the almost jarring dissonance between his real past and this fabrication. Regardless he'd have to get used to it, at least till he could get home.

“Ok. I still don't understand why we need to have a custody hearing.” Harry prompted, hoping Stark would get to the point. He obliged.

“Uh, right. The original plan was to make it look like I tampered with the records to hide us being related. Problem is, if I was just your guardian there would be a hell of a lot of hoops to jump through, or at least make it look like I jumped through, to make it legal. Then when someone digs up the genetic relation it gets... messy. Amazingly enough, if I can prove a biological connection I can get full legal and physical custody free from hoop jumping or red tape. I've even managed to get an agreement for the court records to be sealed for 'privacy concerns'.” He finished smugly.

Harry had to admit that it sounded much simpler. The only issue being-

“How are you going to prove we're biologically related? In case you've forgotten I'm not even from this universe.” Harry had a feeling they _might_ be reluctant to accept DNA results from Stark's personal lab.

Stark lit up.

“Hah. That's where my genius comes in. Have you ever heard of extremis? No. Of course you haven't. It's something I've been working on, trying to make it useful.”

Oh boy, Stark was on a roll.

“It allows you to rewrite your genetic code to almost limitless possibilities. The original version gave enhanced physical performance and extreme regeneration, but it was highly unstable. With a bit of tinkering I made it possible to remove my arc reactor without leaving a giant hole in my chest. It won't be long before it's capable of forging a deeper connection between me and my suits than ever before.”

Harry _really_ hoped this wasn't a front row seat to Stark's first villainous monologue.

“I hope you're not suggesting I let you use experimental technology to change half of my DNA just for a custody hearing.” Harry cut in.

“What? No. Of course not.” Stark looked bewildered, surely a rare occurrence. “I'm just going to modify the epithelial cells in my mouth and saliva glands. We'll need to get a paternity test at a private facility, preferably tomorrow afternoon. They'll do a cheek swab, I'll pay they for next day results, we'll get a positive match, and I'll reverse the changes after the hearing.”

Yes, because that was _so_ much better. Actually it kind of was. For a moment there...

“Er, isn't it a bit extreme to change your DNA for this, even if it _is_ just your mouth lining.”

Stark smirked at the unintentional pun.

“Yeah, no. It's so basic I could do it in my sleep. Just do me a favour and give me a cheek swap to calibrate the formula. I'll have it done by tomorrow.”

He seemed adamant. Harry could only hope he knew what he was doing.

“Fine, if you're sure.” He relented.

Stark didn't waste any time giving Harry the swab and telling him how to use it. A minute later and it was back in Stark's pocket sealed in a plastic tube.

“Anything else I need to know for the hearing?” Harry was ready to be done with this to be honest.

“Just the basic story. I had to give them most of the details so they'd agree to sealing the records. They'll mainly be checking you want to live with me, but with what looks like a legitimate paternity claim there's nothing to contest anyway. All you need to know is that the Jones's moved to New York for work last year and brought you with them, they died in a car accident while you were staying with a friend and a letter from your mother turned up with my name in it while their estate was being sorted. We got in contact and it took off from there, they'll lap it up.”

Right. He could manage that much. Hopefully it would go as smoothly as Stark seemed to think it would.

“Um, before I forget again, I've gold some gold coins from back home I've been trading for cash. Peter seemed to think it might be dangerous and said I should ask you about better ways to trade it.”

Stark shot him an odd look.

“You do realise as your guardian I'll be paying for your needs...”

Harry hadn't really thought about it.

Stark sighed having read Harry's expression correctly.

“How much gold are we looking at here.” He asked disinterested, topping up his tumbler of iced tea.

“I think it's around about three million galleons.” It was a lot less than what was originally in his vaults but he was honestly lucky the goblins didn't just confiscate the lot. Instead they blatantly overcharged him for building repairs and banned his family line from using the bank for seven generations.”

“And?” Stark demanded.

He elaborated at Harry's blank look.

“How much does one of these _galleons_ weigh? And what grade are they?”

Oh right, that wasn't common knowledge here.

“They're a half troy ounce of twenty four carat gold each.”

Stark choked on a mouthful of tea.

“Are you telling me you have, what... 50 tons of gold, that's got to be close to one and three quarter billion dollars worth of gold just piled up in your _basement_?” He demanded incredulously.

Harry though Stark was being a little harsh. It's not like he had anywhere better to keep it after he was banned from Gringotts on pain of being dragon fodder.

“It's a _very_ strongly warded basement.” He defended himself.

Stark closed his eyes and appeared to be counting.

How do you even have that much gold?” He asked once he was calmer. “It's more than some country's gold reserves.”

Harry blinked, nonplussed. Sure it was worth a lot more here but he hadn't expected there to be so little.

“Er, it was the local currency. I inherited it from my parents.” He wondered if he should mention he was only considered moderately wealthy by wizarding standards. Thinking it couldn't hurt, he did.

“But where does it all come from.” Stark seemed honestly confused. “Do you have some sort of magic spell for turning lead into gold?” He asked sarcastically.

Harry's silence was apparently telling.

“You have a spell for turning lead into gold.” Stark repeated, tone now curious.

Now he'd done it.

“ _I_ don't. It was one of the goals of alchemy though. There's only one person recorded to have been successful at it after he created a philosopher's stone.”

Stark only looked more curious.

“What, the whole perfect element, turns 'base metals' to gold, and creates the elixer of life philosopher's stone?”

Harry was starting to wonder if there had been travel between their dimensions before. There were a few too many myths and legends that crossed over for coincidence.

“Well... Yes.” He'd pretty much described it perfectly.

“How does it work?”

Of course he'd ask that.

“I don't _know._ I didn't even get a chance to finish my schooling. Transmuting gold through alchemy is the equivalent of... Ok. So if you went to university to get a doctorate, then studied a couple of other subjects to about the same level, maybe earned a couple of honorary doctorates along the way. _Then_ spent half your life researching your speciality until finally making a discovery that earns you a Nobel prize while blowing the competition out of the water. _That's_ transmuting gold from lead. _I_ on the other hand dropped out of the equivalent of high school at the end of my second to last year. Do you see the problem here?”

He must have since he let it go.

“Your world must have made hundreds, no, thousands of tonnes of gold with this stone. How the hell did they manage the hyperinflation crisis?” Stark mused.

Actually Harry was fairly certain Flamel _couldn't_ have made that much gold on his own. That would have required an insane amount of magic and he'd never heard of any sort of financial crisis like that anyway. Now that he was thinking about it there was another potential answer to the rarity of gold here.

“Um, you already know there's aliens here, and some of them have definitely been to Earth before... What's to say none of them have made off with the majority of the gold while primitive humans were too busy fighting each other to notice?”

Stark froze.

“Son of a bitch!” He yelled. “Golden Realm of _dirty thieves_.”

Golden Realm... Wasn't that another name for Asgar-

Oh.

“So... Is the gold I brought going to be a problem?” It's not like they could do anything about stolen global resources at the moment anyway.

“What? Oh, it's fine. We'll make it an inheritance from your mother and I'll run it by the legal team. I'll see if Pepper will look it over too.”

Harry frowned, confused.

“Who's Pepper?”


	11. Chapter 10

Stark looked at Harry in disbelief.

“Pepper Potts.” He drawled slowly as if Harry were a simpleton. “As in Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark industries. Otherwise known as _my fianc_ _é_.”

Oh...

“You're getting married?!”

He may have let a little too much disbelief slip into his tone there judging by Stark's wry look.

“I mean, uh, congratulations? I assume she... uh, that is, surely she must know about this... whole, thing. Right?”

Stark smirked at him amused. At least he wasn't offended.

“Yeah, everything except where you really came from. As much as she usually tolerates my crap, I thought I'd better clear it with her _before_ taking on custody of a 'minor'. She wants to meet you by the way. I was thinking we could do lunch before the DNA test.”

Well, that was terrifying.

“Not sure she completely believes you aren't a product of my playboy days... Might be a good idea to tell her the rest of the story. ”

Harry winced at the idea of trying to convince her he _wasn't_ _really_ Stark's illegitimate kid _honest_ , just before getting a DNA test to prove otherwise _._ Not to mention this couldn't be doing anything good for their relationship.

“Exactly how brassed off was she when you told her?”

At the question Stark took on a pleasant mien of perplexity.

“I think she was more pissed off at the accords causing issues than she was at me. Almost sounded approving of the whole custody thing... or maybe that I talked to her first.”

Stark shrugged it off apparently not caring so long as she wasn't angry with him.

Hopefully she wouldn't be angry with Harry either. Regardless of the legitimacy of the whole performance he'd prefer _not_ having to deal with an antagonistic 'step-mother'.

“Anyway, that's for tomorrow.” Stark dismissed picking up a case from the table and presenting it to Harry with a flourish. “Today is for presents.”

The case was silver, about a foot square and half as thick with a handle like a briefcase. It had three locking mechanisms on the handle side but no keyhole or combination dial.

“Er, thank you? It's a nice... case.”

Stark rolled his eyes.

“You're meant to open it Dorothy.”

Stark put his words into action by placing his thumb over one of the locking mechanisms. All three locks disengaged with a beep and the top half of the case folded back to rest against the table top. Small panels folded out of the base to each side holding holo-emitters followed by a third panel folding back to recline above the case lid and display a folded soft gold bodysuit above a grapefruit sized metal ball in the base of the case.

Harry blinked.

“You made me a bodysuit?” He queried, eyeing the plain garment. It was one solid colour and appeared designed to be skin tight, only it was about four sizes too big.

“That's the under-suit.” Stark sounded put-upon. “It's mainly for comfort since it docks to the nanite shell as part of the temperature regulation system. It helps with shock absorption too. You don't _need_ it if you're suiting up in an emergency but its sensors make the nanites respond more intuitively to your movements.”

The mention of nanites had Harry taking a closer look at the metal ball but... other than the blue/grey colour he couldn't see anything strange about it.

He gave it a poke.

It immediately dissolved in a river of metal that flowed up his arm, under his shirt, and crested over his shoulder to spread across his torso.

“Er, Stark.” Harry squeaked, trying not to panic as it crept up his neck.

Stark was completely unconcerned, the bastard.

“Relax. It's based on a new suit I've been tinkering with for Underoos using synthetic vibranium nanites. I _was_ going to have you put on the under-suit first, but they're not dangerous... to you. Just let them do their thing.”

That was easy for Stark to say. He wasn't the one with what felt like liquid metal crawling over his face, not to mention his er... more _sensitive_ parts downstairs _._ Apparently the nanites weren't designed to go over regular clothing.

Thankfully it was didn't take long before the nanites blocking his vision changed into some sort of augmented reality display. Being able to see considerably reduced his discomfort and allowed him to take stock of the rest of his body.

The suit was... conforming. It might have been made out of metal but it was incredibly thin and flexible. It hugged his body like a second skin making him feel like he was indecent. Perhaps it would feel more conservative with the under-suit on rather than having metal directly against his skin, but he wasn't sure his coat would make him feel better or just make him feel like a flasher.

“Can we get a mirror Friday?”

One of the window panes darkened at Stark's request allowing Harry a view of how he looked in the suit. His attention was drawn to the suit's 'eyes' from intimidation factor alone. They were a bright glowing green with a predatory tilt making them hard to ignore. Between them was a stylistic gold beak covering his nose. It somehow managed to curve down in a way that didn't look completely ridiculous. Though Stark apparently hadn't thought the beak was enough for falcon embellishments.

After removing his street clothes Harry could see that most of the suit was covered in a subtle feather pattern. It looked like thin metal feathers layered and melded together with slight variations in 'feather' colour improving the detail. The lower half of his face and down across his collar bones, chest and abdomen were varying shades of brass to bronze, subtly flattering his figure with the V shaped outline. The rest of the suit was mostly a mix of titanium grey and shades of blue/grey covering the rest of his head, spreading out over his shoulders upper arms and back, sweeping around to fill in the sides of his torso and flowing down over his hips and thighs before coming to a stop just above his knees. The lower arms and legs being the only exception with the appearance of smooth scales rather than feathers. They were the same gold colour as the beak.

To be honest it looked less like a suit of armour and more like a work of art. He hated to consider how much it was worth and it was probably better if he didn't know. He'd be far to conscious of just how much money he was wearing to risk getting it scratched if he did. That was... not exactly conductive to playing superhero.

Finished with his inspection he returned his attention to Stark catching the tail end of a specs rundown.

“Powered by 12 micro reactor nodes in a distributed arc power system, uses a neural-reactive interface for intuitive operation, self-contained environmental protection, a lightweight and thin but incredibly durable nanite shell, parachute for emergencies, and an AI to help you control everything.”

Everything had sounded almost restrained for Stark until that last one.

“You're giving me an AI?” He asked incredulous.

Flashes of Hermione's SPEW rants running through his head made him incredibly uncomfortable with the idea. From what he'd seen of her, Friday was a sentient and sapient being in her own right yet he'd often heard her referred to as 'Stark's AI' by the media and general population as if she was merely property. How much liberty did Stark's AIs have?

“Think of her more as a natural-language user interface for now. She has the potential to develop into more, but that'll happen naturally as she learns how to work with you.”

Stark seemed to have misinterpreted Harry's trepidation of _owning a person_ with some sort of wariness of AIs. Unfortunately all Harry had heard was that Stark was giving him _ownership_ of a _baby_ AI and he was going to be responsible for raising it.

“Er, Stark, look. I appreciate the... gesture-” How to say this without offending the man. “-but I don't think I can own- I mean, er, raising a baby AI sounds like a big responsibility, maybe-”

“I'm gonna stop you right there.” Stark looked both amused and strangely warm.

“First, I'm not expecting you to be her parent. She's young, but she's self-sufficient and she has access to Friday if she needs it. Just treat her right and she'll figure out the rest for herself.”

That much Harry could manage, assuming it was really so simple.

“Second, I'm not _giving_ her to you. She was created to help you use the suit but she's still a learning program. If she likes you she'll grow into the role like Karen has for Underoos, but if she doesn't, or if she decides she wants to do something else, she's got access to half a dozen other servers capable of supporting her. Besides it looks like the accords are going to be the authority for non-human rights. I've been tweaking the wording to cover AIs so that once it gets through I'll be able to make sure she's her own legal entity. Until then I retain sole 'ownership' of any AIs I create.”

Considering how much effort Stark was putting into supporting and protecting _Harry,_ a complete stranger, he should have realised Stark would have it covered for his electronic 'kids'.

Still, whatever Stark said about the legalities, he didn't go handing out his AI's to just anyone. As far as Harry knew Peter was the only other person to get AI assistance and he was practically Stark's kid himself. It was a major gesture of trust from Stark and Harry was touched, though Stark would likely deny it...

“Are there any _other_ over the top features you forgot to mention?” He'd be shocked if there wasn't something. “Not that you could top installing a _person_ in here.” Though he wouldn't put it past Stark to try.

“You know she can hear you right? Engage protocol 'bad touch' Baby-Girl.”

All the _decorative_ feather and scale patterning fanned out from the suit so it appeared to be covered in razor blades. If anyone tried to grab hold of him they'd be sliced to ribbons on all the sharp edges.

“There's a _few_ extra features, but you'll have to go through the training modules if you want to use them. There's nothing immediately lethal, but some of them aren't meant to be used on petty criminals either. Until you've finished the training they'll be locked down, except for emergencies. Even then it'll be the suit's AI controlling them. Say hi Kiddo.”

“'ai Kiddo.” A female cockney voice emanated from both the suits helmet and external speakers.

“Er, what?” Harry was too surprised to make a better show of it. It was a little violating to find your 'clothing' speaking to you.

“You're a bit radio rental in'cha?” The voice mocked. This had Stark's sense of humour written all over it.

Harry shot him a baleful look. Stark's 'innocent face' was about as effective as the Weasley twins' ever was.

“I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting... that. It's nice to meet you- er, what should I call you, ah... Miss?

Harry thought it prudent to be _polite_ to the being encasing him in tiny metal robots.

“Mr Stark 'asn't given me a name. Why daan't ya thra me sum ideas. Never kna, if they aint totally bloomin' useless I might even use whan.

Well, that was _sort of_ friendly. Stark seemed to have a theme for acronym names, or backronyms at least. Maybe-

“How about H.E.D.W.I.G. after my first friend. Um... _Helpful_ Electronic... Dame, Who... Imparts, Guidance.” Flattery gets you everywhere.

“Wait. Someone named their kid _Hedwig_?” Stark demanded. “Isn't that child abuse?”

Harry couldn't help but be offended by that. Hedwig was a perfectly acceptable name.

“No, _I_ named my _owl_ Hedwig, after a witch who became the patron saint for orphans.” It had appealed greatly to an eleven year old Harry who'd been an orphan for longer than he could remember.

Stark must have had an inkling to this as he suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“Ya wanna name me after a pet?” The AI did not sound amused.

“What? No.” Harry hadn't though how that might sound. Obviously the AI was slightly more advanced than Stark had suggested. “She wasn't a pet. More a companion if anything, an intelligent one. Pretty sure _I_ was _her_ pet human as far as she was concerned.”

That seemed to placate her. She made a considering sound from the speakers, possibly just for effect. He was fairly sure she'd be advanced enough to not to need that sort of time for thinking.

“At least ya kna the peckin' order, and I am a bit of a 'oot if I coffee and cocoa myself.” She chirped.

Harry groaned at the puns. He'd have to think up a suitable revenge on Stark for inflicting this upon him.

“Ya kna, I fin' it suits me. Comes from the Old 'igh German for battle and figh'. Maybe ya aint comple'ly useless after aw.”

It sounded like she'd answer to Hedwig. That was good, Harry had no intention of calling her anything else if she was just going to mock him regardless.

“Brilliant. Stark, how do I get this thing off?” He was about ready to go home. Tomorrow was shaping up to be a big day after all.

Hedwig answered first.

“Fris' ya put your clothes on ya ninny.” Stark snorted. Revenge would be sweet indeed.

At least Hedwig _was_ being _helpful_ , technically. Perhaps he should have worked a synonym of _polite_ into her name. It might have given her some direction. 

Stark showed him how to reduce the nanites into a more contained form. The ball shape it was originally in was designed to interact with the case for maintenance and diagnostics, thus the holo-emitters on the case. It also came pre-configured with a 'belt' setting so Harry could wear it inconspicuously in his civilian ID.

If he _really_ wanted to entertain 'constant vigilance', the under-suit could be worn under his street clothes. Turns out it was skin-tight despite appearances, but was loose to make it easier to put on. It could compress itself once someone was wearing it and was thankfully compatible with undergarments, unlike the nanites by themselves.

Stark did make him try the whole thing on _with_ the under-suit and the rest of his costume before he left. Harry had to admit, despite his own discomfort with how exposing it felt the costume _was_ rather striking. He was kind of looking forward to seeing what Peter thought of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested translations for the terrible cockney accent & rhyming slang:
> 
> 'ai Kiddo  
> Hi Kiddo
> 
> You're a bit radio rental in'cha?  
> You're a bit mental aren't you?
> 
> Mr Stark 'asn't given me a name. Why daan't ya thra me sum ideas. Never kna, if they aint totally bloomin' useless I might even use whan.  
> Mr Stark hasn't given me a name. Why don't you throw me some ideas. Never know, if they aren't totally blooming useless I might even use one.
> 
> Ya wanna name me after a pet?  
> You want to name me after a pet?
> 
> At least ya kna the peckin' order, and I am a bit of a 'oot if I coffee and cocoa myself.  
> At least you know the pecking order, and I am a bit of a hoot if I say so myself.
> 
> Ya kna, I fin' it suits me. Comes from the Old 'igh German for battle and figh'. Maybe ya aint comple'ly useless after aw.  
> You know, I think it suits me. Comes from the Old High German for battle and fight. Maybe you aren't completely useless after all.
> 
> Fris' ya put your clothes on ya ninny.  
> First you put your clothes on you ninny.
> 
> Hope this helps.


	12. Chapter 11

 Late Monday morning found Harry walking through the doors of a burger joint near the tower, having _finally_ begun his investigation into the leads from Stark.

He'd starting searching in Greenwich village. While none of the witnesses could seemingly remember _where_ the strange building had appeared, a sign the wards hadn't completely collapsed at the time, Stark had managed to trace their movements back to having all passed near the same city block in the area when the building would have been visible.

So far he'd managed to trace the building back to a section on Bleecker Street by following the current of the area's free magic. It was an unusual and undoubtedly powerful ward setup, but it was hardly subtle. Usually ward anchors were set well within the ward boundaries so their drain on the local free magic couldn't be detected. The way the free magic was flowing around the hidden building felt as if the _whole_ building was a ward anchor. It _had_ to be tied into the planet's dimensional shielding.

He'd been unable to pinpoint the location exactly, but he did have a fair idea where the building was. There was a conspicuous lack of one 177a Bleecker Street despite there being a 177b at almost the centre of the power sink. It was exactly the sort of oversight Harry would expect to see back home from wizards who were overconfident in their wards.

Unfortunately Harry hadn't managed to find a way past the building's defences that morning despite having an idea where it should be.

It seemed like he had some time in the Black library to look forward to.

Taking a look around the restaurant he had to wonder if he was in the right place. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with it exactly. In a family restaurant kind of way it was... pleasant even. It just wasn't at the kind of standard he'd have expected for somewhere Stark patroned. Not that Harry was complaining. Stark had vouched for their burgers and the atmosphere was about as casual as you could get. He was all for it if Stark _didn't_ want to meet up at a posh restaurant with far too much cutlery.

Stark was at a table in the back with a red head who much have been Miss Potts. While no one seemed to be approaching them, the not so subtle stares from the other patrons gave Harry the impression this meeting wasn't going to fly under the radar.

Stark stood up as Harry approached the table.

“Junior! Meet Pepper. Pepper, Junior.” Stark waved his hands between them in an underwhelming introduction.

Potts' fond sigh matched Harry's exasperation perfectly.

“Harry if you don't mind. It's nice to meet you Miss Potts.” He offered his hand.

She gifted him with a professional smile.

“Likewise, call me Pepper.” She shook his hand firmly.

“Pepper then. Have you ordere-”

“Wait a second.” Stark interrupted. “Why are you're calling her _Pepper_ when you call me _Stark_?” He affected a hurt expression.

“Because... she said I could.” Harry left the 'unlike you' heavily implied. It's not like Stark had ever offered.

Stark considered this for a moment.

“Oh... call me Tony then.” He sounded delightfully hopeful.

“If you're sure Mr T. Then.” Like he was going to call him Tony when he was still calling Harry 'Dorothy' half the time.

"Careful Dorothy, if you keep it up I'll have to get creative." Stark attempted to look cross but his amusement showed.

"But... It's your name. I heard a lady call you it on TV once. Something, something, Tony Stark, the godless T. Then.”

He was saved from retaliation by the waiter delivering their meals.

Again Harry was surprised, this time by the simple burgers and chips, or fries as they were called here. That lasted only long enough for him to take his first bite, after which he could no longer fault Stark's taste.

They kept conversation relatively light over the meal, with Harry filling them in on his success earlier in the morning and Pepper asking questions about his life back home. Stark had obviously filled her in on his inter-universal migration.

They were down to a few remaining chips when Harry remembered he still had the tablet Stark had given him on Saturday with the information on the disappearing buildings. He dug it out of his bag.

“Here's your computer thing back. I've taken notes on everything I need from it”

He held it out for Stark but had to set it on the table when Stark made no move to take it.

“Do you not like it?” Stark sounded bemused.

Now Harry was confused.

“It's... fine?” It wasn't quite as intuitive as his phone but he'd managed eventually. “I don't need to borrow it any more, I've got what I need from it.”

Stark looked even more bemused, waving him off.

“What? No, keep it. I'm sure Underoos'll be thrilled to show you how to use it properly. You need all the practise you can get with technology.”

He was unfortunately correct in that but Harry couldn't let him keep giving him gifts like this. At least not without giving something in return.

“It could be useful.” He conceded but continued before Stark had a chance to respond. “How much are they worth? I don't have the cash at the moment but I can give you the equivalent in gold.”

Which was something he needed to remedy. Tony had claimed it was _his_ right to pay for lunch as the one who'd invited Harry, so he was fine for now. He'd need more groceries eventually though, if nothing else.

“It's a _tablet_. Consider it a gift.” Stark insisted, digging through his pockets.

He perked up, drawing out a small plastic card and tossing it on the table next to the tablet.

“You can take that while you're at it. The limit's only twenty thousand but it's paid off every month.”

Having never used one before, it took Harry a moment to realise Stark was trying to give him a credit card. He narrowed his eyes.

“I can't take that.”

At Tony's offended look he realised he'd have to elaborate. They were already attracting an increase in attention so he discreetly flicked his wand to cast a muffliato.

“Not that I don't appreciate everything you've done for me, but there's a limit to what I can accept. I'm not sure how much it cost to get my identity set up but the armour you gave me had to cost a pretty penny. I should be paying you back for _that_ as well, at least the material cost.”

It was odd being on the other side of such a disagreement. He was beginning to see why Ron had always adamantly refused any 'charity' from Harry.

Stark looked frustrated. He probably honestly didn't care about spending the money if doing so made his friends happy. The problem being, Harry wasn't one of his friends... or at least he hadn't been when this had all started. You'd have to be stone cold or have enough hubris to topple empires not to warm up to Stark with the way he _cared._ Regardless, Harry didn't want Stark to feel he was only there for his money, even if he _had_ originally made contact to access his resources.

“What happened to claiming my gold as inheritance? I don't see why this is even an issue.” Stark had seemed confident it wouldn't be too much of a problem the day before.

Pepper took the opportunity to cut in.

“It's _too much_ gold, for one.”

It was subtle, but he was sure her tone was a shade warmer than earlier. Without the disparity he'd never have noticed she'd been anything less than perfectly welcoming.

“Do you expect to need much money of your own once you're living in the tower?” She asked.

Her casual inquiry had him mentally grinding to a halt. Stark himself looked briefly taken aback. In hindsight, they hadn't discussed any of the more pedestrian aspects of custody arrangements. That was a mistake they'd need to fix before the hearing.

“If you're worried about financial independence, a few pounds of inherrited gold shouldn't raise too many flags, but you'd lose half of it in taxes by the time you have it converted to cash.” Pepper continued, either oblivious to their mental flailing or, more likely, ignoring it.

Her suggestion was hardly ideal, but it was a hell of a lot better than sponging off Stark for who knows how long. He'd probably manage something near a hundred thousand out of it which would be plenty for now.

“Ok, that's... sensible. As long as Stark stops with the gifts. I mean, the suit's brilliant and everything, don't think I don't appreciate it, but-”

“You're not comfortable taking advantage of his generosity.” Pepper finished for him as he struggled to find the words.

His nod of agreement had her continuing.

“Tony likes to spoil the people he's close to. It's attracted some parasites in the past but I don't think you need to worry about being like _them_. You obviously don't have their inability to see Tony as a person rather than their personal tech supplier and financer.”

Whoever 'them' was, Harry was glad to not be associated with them. The amount of bitter dislike Pepper loaded into the word made Harry feel almost sorry about their inevitable fate.

“You'll appreciate his spontaneous gifts more when you realise how terrible he is at birthdays and Christmas.” She said, shrugging off her dark mood.

Naturally Stark objected to this slight on his character.

“When have my gifts ever been less than perfect?” He asked indignantly.

“Bunny.” Was Pepper's deadpan response.

Stark made a wounded noise.

“That was a _great_ pres-” At Pepper's raised eyebrow he choked off his objection and changed tack. “Whatever. Junior, you've already paid me back tenfold with the books you gave me. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get your hands on that kind of knowledge?”

Harry could guess if magic users in this universe were anything like back home. It's why he'd chosen them in the first place.

“Yeah I suppose so. Tell me once you're finished with the ones I gave you. I've got a whole library back in my house.”

Stark's eyes lit up.

“Yeah, I've been meaning to ask... What's with the wands? The books all called it a _focus_ , but-” He caught Pepper's 'not now' look and curbed his enthusiasm “...you know, I'm sure that can wait till Saturday. All right, look. We can still do the inheritance thing if you want, but it's not going to be a good look for me if you pay for everything yourself. If we at least make it _look_ like you're living with us at the tower it'll help, but taking on your guardianship means people will expect me to pay for your expenses, especially if they _work out_ we're biologically related.”

Harry glanced at Pepper to check her reaction but she seemed unperturbed at Stark mentioning their fake relation.

“How about a compromise.” Stark grimaced like the word left a bad taste in his mouth. “I'll take some of the gold off your hands, but instead of paying you directly I'll put the money aside to pay off the credit card. I lost millions worth of it with the destruction of the iron legion. It shouldn't be difficult to slip a hundred pounds or so back in my supplies. No one _really_ knows how much I've recovered from damaged units.”

This suited Harry just fine. It's not like he cared what the public thought about Stark funding him. He had plenty of practise ignoring their unwarranted opinions back home.

“I take it I'll need to keep the rest of the gold hidden then.” It would at least make it easier to take back home with him when he figured out how.

“Yeah, you're better off keeping most of it in reserve until we have the accords sorted anyway. That'll give your identity time to stabilise and we might be able to finagle a way for you to use it through your 'mother's' mysterious background. It depends on how the Accords deal with intra-planetry migration and trading.” Stark responded.

Harry hadn't considered that angle but with the increasing number of alien visitors it _did_ make sense for Earth to have some sort of policy for it.

They had to table the discussion there. Pepper needed to get back to work and it was almost time for their appointment at the paternity facility. He must have passed some sort of test during the meal as Pepper gave him a much more genuine smile than she had at their introduction and suggested a celebration dinner after the custody hearing on Thursday.


End file.
